The Going's On: Just The Beginning
by ChloeRhiannonX
Summary: Six individuals with one thing in common: a secret that separates them from the rest of the world. At least from the world Courtney Black knows. Now she finds herself thrown into the midst of this new life where all roads lead her back to the mother she never knew. Can she find the sense in a world that shouldn't exist, or will it be too much for her to handle?
1. The Return Of

**Chapter One**

**The Return of...**

Even though it was the middle of the week and nearing summer, the cafeteria was jam-packed with students varying from Freshmen to Senior's. Most of them would have usually been outside, but the summer storm had brought on the heavy downpour of rain for the midday and the students found themselves all packed into the small hall. The food queue's were buzzing with everyone eager to get to the front, pushing and pulling each other in an attempt to keep occupied. Shouts and screams came from all over the place. Friends calling to one and other. Arguments breaking out. The football team being their usual ass-like selves. It wasn't an unusual scene for Muskoka High school. Any event that required more than one class of them to be in a room together ended up like this.

In a secluded corner, far from the action of the rest of the school, a small group of teenagers in their third year found themselves having to talk a little louder than usual to themselves. They weren't used to having their table crowded by so many others. The conversation was hard to keep track of and between the five of them most had broke off into mini-discussions. None saw the sixth teenage boy running towards them.

The green-haired punk dodged in and out of the crowd, pushing and shoving to get to his destination. He looked a little in slow motion to anyone who was watching carefully enough, but no eyes were on him. It was a trial he wasn't good at, trying to get to the round table in the back, but he managed to sink into a seat beside his girlfriend, a look that read 'I'm-about-to-headbutt-a-table' on his paling face.

"Kill me!" He yelled, not caring who was listening in on them. "Someone just plunge a knife into my heart and kill me right now!" And then he did headbutt the table. His friends were giving him nonchalant looks, none of concern for their friend and his terrible acting skills. Duncan couldn't possibly be that hurt by anything; he was a man of steel.

"Okay," his girlfriend answered, not putting too much thought into it as she continued to flick through her Biology textbook. "What's wrong, Duncan?" Courtney eyed her boyfriend from her peripheral vision, trying to act as if she didn't care too much. Truth be told, she worried for him. Especially the past couple of days. Duncan hadn't been quite himself.

"My life is wrong!" Duncan continued to screech, not even looking up at the others as his head raised from the table and instantly weaseled it's way into his palms. Courtney pushed out her arm, rubbing his back in gentle circles. She was a beautiful girl, Courtney. She looked like a Victoria Secret model with her slim yet curvy figure, bending just the right way as she reached over to her boyfriend. Her skin held a fawn complexion, completely free of blemishes. She had been a very sheltered child growing up and her father rarely let her out of his sight, so it had been hard for Courtney to attain a scar or imperfection. Duncan often found himself wondering how he found such a perfect girl.

The rest of the table were now looking a tad more interested, leaning in closer. Duncan had usually given up on his stories by now, but the actor was still going at it.

"Dude!" A blonde boy directly across the table shouted, pushing his beige cowboy hat out of his eyes. "Calm down, it can't be that bad, whatever it is." The line sounded a little too rehearsed to Courtney, but she figured Geoff knew Duncan well enough to have used it before. Duncan shot his best friend a 'Yes it is' look, before shoving his head back into his hands. Everyone was starting to realize that the disturbance this time had really done something to hurt him deeply. It wasn't that his friends didn't care, they were just more curious about what it was rather than curious about a way to get rid of it.

"Please, don't leave us in suspense any longer." A girl to Duncan's right added, with an eye roll to show she really didn't care. Gwen had known Duncan the longest out of everyone at the table so Courtney didn't find it strange that she was the one who cared the least about her boyfriends tale. She remembered the story they'd once shared with her of how they'd met in Kindergarten because Duncan had fallen over and cut his knee and needed someone to assist him to the nurse. Somehow Gwen had been pinned with the task and they'd been best friends ever since. Courtney remembered being able to relate to it. The way she had met her best friend, Bridgette, was when the clumsy blonde had tripped in the yard and skinned her elbow, Courtney was the one to take her to their first grade teacher and they'd been best friends ever since.

Duncan sighed and slipped his head onto the table again, folding his arm's beneath his face to comfort the blow this time. "It's my cousin." He said, but it came out slightly muffled.

Bridgette leaned in across Courtney to hear him better, "What about your cousin?" She asked out of pure concern. Bridgette was the nicer one in the group. She was the one who cared for each of her friends and in this particular instance really didn't want to see Duncan hurting so badly.

The delinquent didn't answer her immediately, though. The table was in silence, waiting for him to do so. If something was bothering Duncan this much it must have been good. And now that they knew it involved his family, they were all the more interested. Duncan didn't talk about his family much.

"She's coming to stay with me and my parents for a while!" He finally blurted out, bringing his head out of his arms, only to slam it back down. Everyone at the table started laughing. They had been expecting some long, ranty story. Really, anything but that. Duncan had never been one to overreact, usually telling things as they were. But this seemed to be out of his hands, his usual 'I don't give a fuck' attitude not with him today.

Though Courtney was quite eager to meet a member of Duncan's family. They'd been dating on and off for almost two years by that point and she hadn't met any of them. His parents were always working, according to him; his elder sister was away and college and his younger sister was away at boarding school-the one he had got thrown out of at the end of middle school, thus how he had ended up at Muskoka High.

"What's so bad about that?" The final member of the group asked, giving a jerk of his head to sweep his black bangs from his face. Trent was always in need of a haircut, as Courtney would put it.

All eyes were on Duncan by now, even Courtney had looked away from her textbook to see what the fuss her boyfriend was kicking up was about. Not that she had many family members herself-actually, she only had her father-but she wanted to know what what could have been so bad about Duncan's cousin, who had never mentioned before.

"It is," Duncan tried to tell them. "My cousin is pure evil. No joke!" Everyone was trying their best to suppress their smiles and laughs, but it wasn't as easy as they all made it out to be. Duncan's ridiculousness was getting out of hand, and they all found it hilarious.

"She can't be that bad, Duncan," Courtney said, still rubbing circles on his back. It was a trick she had learnt at CIT camp over the summer to get someone to cheer up. Showing you were there for them tended to lighten their mood just a bit. However, it was not working with Duncan. He was adamant that this was the end of the world.

"When is she coming?" Bridgette asked, eager to meet the new girl. She was a people's person, she loved befriending everyone. And this was Duncan's cousin, so she had extra reason to be eager.

"She's already here," Duncan explained. "She arrived last night and started school this morning. And I'm the unlucky person who gets to show her around." The group gave Duncan a funny look.

"Where is she then?" Trent piped up, seeing as she wasn't around. Duncan took a long look around the cafeteria, scoping out every person before stopping and staring at the entrance.

"See that girl," Duncan pointed a sly finger over to the double doors on the far side of the room. The group of five strained their necks and focused their eyes through the mess of a cafeteria to see where Duncan was pointing to. "The one looking around in the blue shirt."

"The one walking over here?" The blonde boy inquired, a smirk on his face as he watched his best friend in distress. Geoff wasn't a soulless person, quite the opposite, actually, but he knew that his best friend was not in any kind of real danger, he was just being dramatic over something that meant very little to the rest of the group. It wasn't uncommon for one of their close friends to always be in some sort of turmoil and the others to not be as upset over it as they were.

"That's her." Duncan turned and ducked his head back into his arms. It was useless, of course, there was only one person in the whole school with a lime green mohawk on top of their head. This girl was going to notice him either way. Which sat well with Courtney, she was interested enough now to want to meet his girl.

"She doesn't look evil." Gwen told them, leaning in closer and whispering as Duncan's cousin was growing nearer.

"Neither does Darth Vader, but he is," Duncan muttered from beneath his arms.

No one saw that the girl had approached the table fully. She didn't look like Duncan at all, in fact she was quite the opposite with had tanned skin much like Courtney's, and long brunette hair that reached just past her chest. Her neon blue top lit up the room around them against the dull school colors of black and white. She had a chipper smile on her flawless face, looking very excited to be standing where she was stood. No one knew why; this school was the one place they all wanted to escape.

"Duncan." The girl said his name sweetly. "I've been looking all over for you." The punk groaned into his sleeves before picking his head up and smiling at his cousin.

"Well, you found me." He turned to his friends and shot them a 'I warned you' look. They still bit onto their lips and cheeks to stop themselves from laughing out loud and looking rude in front of their new friend.

"Aren't you going to introduce me?" The girl asked, looking happily at her cousins five friends. Her eyes caught Gwen's and Courtney could have sworn she saw them both wink at each other, or maybe all that studying instead of eating had gotten to her brain at last.

"I was getting to that," he snapped back. This girl had clearly done something to Duncan to piss him off in the past. Duncan held a grudge. "Taylor, this is Courtney, Geoff, Bridgette, Gwen and Trent. Guys, this is my cousin, Taylor." Duncan pointed to everyone as he said their names, making sure Taylor knew who-was-who, though he didn't plan on letting her stay around his friends for long. She had her own.

"Hey," Taylor waved to the group and they all smiled politely back. "Are you going to finish showing me around?" She impatiently asked her cousin, who was now pulling faces into his hands. The thought of being stuck with his cousin for more than five minutes made his toes curl in irritation. The two hadn't exactly grown up together, but from the times they had met Duncan had never been too overly fond of her.

Courtney couldn't tell, but she was sure that Taylor kept nervously glancing towards her, but as soon as Courtney tried to return the gaze with a kind smile she would turn back to her cousin. It made her wonder if Duncan had mentioned her to his cousin before.

"I wasn't planning on it," Duncan grumbled in reply, but Courtney jumped in to save Taylor.

"Sure he will," Courtney interjected, budging Duncan towards his cousin. She wanted him to be the best kind of person he could be. And if that meant blowing off his friends to show his cousin around school, then so be it. Duncan was not getting out of it, his friends were going to make sure of it. If he was being tortured, they were enjoying the show.

Duncan left and Courtney didn't see her boyfriend again until the school bell rang and they met up at their usual spot under the trees on the outskirts of the school.

The couple were walking up the pebbled lane, hand-in-hand and heads focused on the floor in front of them. They were heading towards their street where they both lived. Duncan usually walked his girlfriend home after school and he lived in the house almost directly opposite hers, so it was a win-win situation. Duncan didn't have a car and Courtney usually jumped a ride off one of her friends in the morning to avoid bringing her own car. She and her father were tight on money at the moment. But the couple enjoyed being in each other's company for longer on the walk home. Most of the time they enjoyed each others company, anyway.

"Your cousin is..." Courtney stopped to think of the right words, "Not so evil."

"Wait till you get to know her," the delinquent snorted, looking away from his girlfriend. He was sure Taylor was going to mess things up with her 'thoughts' just like she always did. There was a reason he refused to let his cousin come with him here in the first place, but she just hadn't gotten the picture.

The two continued to walk in silence for a few moments, both basking in their own thoughts before Courtney thought of a conversation starter, "So, what are we doing tonight?" She asked, hoping they could finally get some alone time together with her father planning on going away that night for business. He worked away a lot, leaving Courtney in the house on her own. Courtney had never been inside Duncan's house, it was one of his parents' 'rules'; no guests when they weren't there. And they were never there.

"We? Sorry, Princess, but I have plans." Duncan told her, smirking. Courtney stopped walking to turn to her boyfriend. She wasn't impressed like he seemed to be.

"Again? You never have time for me." The brunette tried to use her 'I love you' voice to persuade Duncan to change his plans, but when he didn't say anything she gave up on that way, and raised her voice, "Are you seeing someone else?" Courtney snatched her hand away from Duncan's grip. "Are you cheating on me?" She accused, not even daring to point a finger anywhere near him.

"No," Duncan placed a kind hand on his Princess' cheek. "No, it's nothing like that. I promise." He leaned in for a kiss, but Courtney avoided his lips, pulling his hand away from her face. She didn't believe him.

"Then what is it?" She asked. "What is so important that it can't wait, huh?" Duncan looked down to his shoes as he heaved a sigh. He knew he couldn't tell her the truth, he wasn't allowed to tell her the truth about him without telling her the truth about everything else too. And that would just complicate things. "What I thought." Courtney looked away from Duncan too, only she did it to hide the tears starting in her eyes. "Maybe this relationship isn't going to work out after all. Goodbye, Duncan." Courtney said, not wanting to prolong their departure. She walked away from the spot where Duncan still stood. It was pointless for him to call after her, she would only ask for something Duncan couldn't give her; the truth. But the truth was a complex thing for anyone to understand by this point. There had been sixteen years-if not longer, of events that Duncan could simply not sum up enough for Courtney even if he could.

* * *

A/N: Thoughts?

'If I could...I would go back in time and I would relive every single moment of it all again...'

I wrote that in an AN in the very last GO story. I never thought I'd get a chance to actually relive some of my favourite moments with my favourite characters in my favourite series. But I decided that yes, I can. And so, I have been working really hard on this series to make it better than the original!

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, you are in for a treat as The Going's On STARTS ALL OVER AGAIN!

Whether you read the original or not, I welcome you aboard this story series that is going to take us over the next few months...And by few months, I mean it could take us up to a year! Hey, ya'll know how many stories there are in this series ;)

Updates will be every Friday. I look forward to seeing you then (:

Thanks for reading, please review :)  
Love, ChloeRhiannonX


	2. What Is Happening?

**Chapter Two**

**What Is Happening?**

The sky was black and the stars were hid behind grey clouds that were going to be bringing more rain their way. Trees swayed from side-to-side in the midnight breeze and three teenagers were lazing about on the grass, slowly chatting about their day at school. It was so mundane that no one would have assumed they were anything other than average teenagers who had snuck out past curfew.

"When are you going to tell her?" Geoff asked, trying to pinpoint the stars through, not taking his eyes off the darkness. It was calming for him.

"I don't think I can," Duncan replied, rolling over onto his stomach beside the bench Geoff was lying on. Duncan was still pissed that Courtney had broken up with him, but he hadn't told the other's that yet. "I was there when it all happened. I can't tell her a thing. It's to protect her. She needs to be protected from this," he waved around without purpose. "All of this..."

"She deserves to know the truth," Bridgette told Duncan, thinking about her best friend who was being kept in he dark. Ever since Bridgette had found out seven years ago she had wanted nothing more than to tell her best friend. Before Duncan had a chance to answer, the goth girl jumped down from a nearby tree, yelling at the punk- as usual.

"It doesn't matter anymore does it, Duncan?" Duncan hopped to his feet with the swift flick of the wind to face the angered girl. He knew what was going to come next.

"Stop reading my head, Gwen." He growled at her, eyes tinting a deep ruby color. Gwen knew Duncan hated it when she interfered with his brain, so she only did it more often.

"Back up!" Bridgette said, pushing in between the two. "What's happened?" She asked, always being the peacemaker when these two started fighting. Gwen, after staring at the punk for a few more moments, turned her head and laughed. It came out as a shrill shriek more than a laugh. Gwen was angry.

"Duncan and Courtney are no more," she announced. Duncan death glared his supposed best friend harshly. And if they hadn't been best friends for almost a hundred years-and the fact that he had changed greatly since they had met-he would have ripped her throat out there and then.

"What did you do?" Geoff asked, swinging his legs over the side of the bench, but not getting any closer to either of them. If one pounced the other Geoff did not want to be caught in the middle- Geoff learnt that the hard way.

"She didn't want me to keep anymore secrets, but I have to." Duncan said, knowing that they already knew the last part. It had been all the group had discussed for the past fortnight at these nightly meetings they had. It wasn't that anything in particular had sparked the topic, but once someone had brought it up, it was hard to get rid of. None of them liked having to lie to Courtney as often as they did. They tried their best to keep it all at bay and just be themselves, but that proved to be troublesome-especially hose less experience with lying to get close to people.

As much as Bridgette wanted Courtney to know, she still whispered, "You can't expose us for what we are."

"And what are we?" He asked, looking up to view his friends. "FREAKS IS WHAT WE ARE!" He screamed, his eyes lighting up red and throwing his fist into the trunk of a tree. It left an impressive dent.

"Cool it," Gwen told him, aiding him in pulling his arm away from the tree. She had seen him like this countless times over the course of their friendship. It wasn't rare for Duncan to loose his calm, but ever since Courtney had noticed him, he found himself doing it less and less. The others found that Courtney was a good thing in Duncan's life.

"Duncan, you need to control your anger." Geoff explained, patting his best friend on the back. "We can't risk getting caught." The delinquent knew they couldn't get caught. He knew Gwen was right, he had to cool down. But thinking of Courtney and how much he had fallen for her over the past three years brought up his temper when he knew she now wanted nothing to do with him. It was harder to protect her when she didn't know of him. It could be done; Duncan had done it over the years she had been growing up. But now he was used to having Courtney by his side at all times.

Before the four teen's knew it, a big ball of brown fur was running towards them. They knew better than to be scared of Trent in his wolf form, but it was still an odd sight to see for anyone who wasn't them. As he reached the group he transformed back into his human skin and landed on two feet instead of four.

"Guys," he panted breathlessly. "We have a problem." The other's already knew the problem. They had first hand experience in what was going on in town.

"We didn't ask for this, but we need to make sure that we lay low." Bridgette advised. She was the newest member of their clan, but she was definitely wise and had learnt a lot from them in the past few years.

Gwen let out a high pitched scream, her eyes glowing red, just like Duncan's had not that long ago. Trent wrapped his comforting arms around her small frame. He always knew how to hold her just right. "You have to watch your eyes." He whispered in her ear. The other's ignored Gwen's little break down, they were used to it. Gwen was an angry person when she wasn't in control of a situation. Trent, however, always knew just how to handle her.

"We need to figure out how we're gonna hide it this time." Geoff announced, always knowing what needed to be done and never beating around the bush. He knew how to take charge in situations.

"I can't believe this is happening again," Bridgette cried. Geoff wrapped his arm around her shoulder to comfort her. Duncan watched enviously, wanting to be able to wrap his own arms around his own girlfriend, but he couldn't since he didn't have one anymore.

"It's Taylor, she's brought them all back with her." He told them. "I told you she was going to be trouble for us all, and lo and behold-"

"It doesn't matter how its happening." Trent said, releasing Gwen from his grips while cutting off Duncan. Trent was quite fond of Taylor, though she didn't return the same affections. He had missed her in her time away from the group. "It's just-it is happening again." Duncan wasn't having any of that though. His eyes lit up again and he grabbed Trent by the collar.

"Okay, listen, wolf boy!" Duncan spat at him. "I was just getting used to a normal life again and now this shit has happened!" Instead of trying, and failing (they were both quite strong), to pull the two boys apart, Gwen tried to tempt Duncan.

"I'm going for a hunt," she spoke with a whisper in his ear. "Coming, Duncan?" Trent and Duncan stared deep into each other's eyes, until Duncan pushed him away. Trent wasn't scared of Duncan. He was aggressive, but harmless to the people he cared for. This group of dysfunctional lunatics were the closest thing he had to a family while he was in Muskoka and not his hometown.

"Yeah." The punk and the goth were gone with the blink of an eye.

"What's got him worked up?" Trent asked, once he thought the two were out of ear reach, rubbing his neck to ease the pain. It wasn't the first time Duncan had had Trent shoved against a tree by his collar, and it was certainly not going to be the last. The two were always butting heads over one thing or another, that was just the way they had always been.

"Courtney finished with him for keeping secrets." Bridgette informed him while Geoff let out a sigh. It was hard keeping this group together sometimes. Sometimes it was hard for them because they had been around each other for a long time now. But they were the only people they had to depend on, the only people who knew what each of them were struggling with. Especially with the Trackers all over town now.

The news had reached the group a few days earlier. Trackers were starting to search Muskoka for people like them. Though it wasn't the first time, Geoff was sure he hadn't seen so many in one place in his lifetime, and especially in such a small town like Muskoka. The group had to be more careful now than ever. Getting caught by a Tracker was a penalty of death for their kind.

"He'll have to tell her," he told the remaining two.

"Geoff, he can't. What if she tells?" Trent asked, worried that he would be exposed for who he really was. "Plus, Nigel would never allow it. He brought Courtney here to protect her from that life, remember?

"Who'll believe her?" The cowboy answered. "Who'll believe her if she tells?" He swallowed hard. He couldn't say anything against Nigel Black's concerns. The overprotective father wasn't going to let his baby girl know the truth before she turned eighteen years old. At the age of eighteen Courtney would be allowed to know because things wouldn't be so bad for her then. But it was an off-limits conversation to let her know the truth at all, and Nigel Black was determined to keep it that way.

Duncan steadied himself on the branch before tapping on the open window, "Hey, Princess." He said, making the girl jump in her seat. When she realized who it was she scowled to herself. Duncan was the last person Courtney wanted to see right now. But she knew he had a habit of climbing the tree outside her window just to annoy her.

"What do you want Duncan?" She moaned, slinking over to he windowsill where Duncan was resting his arms. It wasn't hard to climb the tree to her bedroom, she did it many times when her father wouldn't let her out. But the fact that he thought he could just weasel his way back into arms not even a full day after she had broke up with him made Courtney want to hurt him.

"I wanna talk." He told her, as if it wasn't obvious enough. The CIT sighed. She didn't want to talk to him.

"I thought I made it pretty clear earlier, I want nothing to do with you." Courtney went to shut her windows, but Duncan pushed them back. He wasn't going to let his girl get away from him so easily. He was prepared to do whatever it takes to get her to trust him again. He had spent too much time of his life getting to know her to let it get thrown away like this. This wasn't just about his job anymore: Duncan was in love with Courtney.

"I want to give us another chance," he told her.

"That's not your decision, it's mine."

"So, what have you decided?" He pestered, hoping she would find him cute and take him back with loving arms. Of course, he knew that was the longest shot he could take.

"Goodbye, Duncan." This time, when Courtney pulled the windows closed, Duncan moved away. Letting her lock him out of her life. He loved Courtney Black more than he had ever loved a human being before, but he could tell when she needed some space. The great thing about being so knowledgeable was knowing when to quit.

"Why don't you tell her the truth?" Taylor asked. When Duncan looked down he found his annoying cousin leaning against the bark. Duncan let out a snarl, showing how much he detested her.

"Get out of here, Taylor!" He yelled quietly, not wanting to alert Courtney or her father. "You've caused enough trouble!" Taylor didn't seem phased by Duncan's accusation, maybe because she knew it was true. Taylor has brought the Trackers back with her, just like he had told the others. It was an accidental thing, they had simply followed her when she'd arrived in Muskoka a few days ago. Duncan had hoped they'd follow her home, too, but Taylor wasn't leaving.

"I've seen it." She replied. Duncan death glared his cousin and jumped from the tree to the floor, landing on his feet with grace in front of Taylor. He gave her a rough shove against the tree, not wanting to mess around when it came to her.

"You couldn't have, it's not gonna happen." He informed Taylor, knowing he was right about this. Courtney really did not want anything to do with him. Even if he did tell her the truth, she was more than likely to run screaming in the opposite direction to him.

"She will take you back, I know she will." Taylor ignored everything Duncan was firing at her, she didn't seem to care what he was saying. She was used to him not liking her, so this was nothing new.

"You can't be trusted!" Duncan shouted. "This is all happening because of you." At that, the punk walked away from his cousin, leaving her standing-smirking-on Courtney's lawn. Taylor was a handful at the best of times, but there was just something off about her that Duncan couldn't stand to be around.

* * *

A/N: This has been the longest week of my life.

No, seriously. All I have wanted to do all week is post this and AGH. Frustration.

But I refuse to change the update schedule. For this story, at least. I need the time I'm using to update this story to edit the rest. I'm almost done with chapter one of Real Life (the story after this one), so it's gonna be a while for me to finish that story and the rest.

And a BIG thank you to my three AMAZING reviewers!

Lepope1234, AHRedDeath and Badass Courtney.

Usually I'd answer the reviews here, but I'm too lazy. And there wasn't much to say except that I'm glad y'all are enjoying this so far!

See ya next week :D

Thanks for reading, please review (:

Love ChloeRhiannonX


	3. Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction

**Chapter Three**

**Truth is Stranger than Fiction **

Six teenagers found themselves sitting in their spot in the cafeteria: the back corner, where no one could hear what they were talking about. The cafeteria wasn't half as busy today as the overnight clouds had emptied themselves out before school had begun that morning. The only difference on this day was Taylor was in Courtney's place. The group had no choice but to accept her; who knew what sort of trouble she would caue out of their sight. Taylor tended to draw attention to herself at all times, hence why all the Trackers had followed her to Muskoka in the first place, and she was bound to do something stupidly if no one was keeping an eye on her.

The CIT was walking into the cafeteria, prepared to sit with her friends, when, in the blink of an eye, Gwen appeared right in front of her. It was as if she teleported from one spot to another in a millisecond.

"Oh," Courtney gasped, stepping back in fright. "Hi, Gwen. I didn't see you there."

"They never do," Gwen mumbled to herself, smirking on the inside, but she didn't show Courtney how pleased she was about scaring her. "So, Courtney, what happened between you and Duncan?" The Goth girl asked innocently. She had heard it from Duncan and now she wanted to hear it from Courtney. It wasn't that Gwen or the others would have cared if Courtney had been any other girl, but she was important to Duncan on more than one level. They had all made it their job to try and get the two back together, and preferably without spilling any secrets.

"I'm fed up of him keeping secrets from me," she willingly admitted, not caring who she was talking to. Gwen had known Duncan longer than Courtney had, she knew him better than Courtney ever hoped to. Courtney wouldn't put it past Gwen to already know whatever secrets Duncan was keeping. The two girls weren't exactly close friends.

"Maybe it's for the best," Gwen suggested with a shrug of shoulders. It wasn't that she didn't like Courtney because she had grown quite fond of the spoilt girl over the years, but she didn't like Duncan getting hurt. She knew that he could never give her up completely for reasons Gwen wasn't allowed to discuss, but the further away they were from each other, Gwen found it better.

"How do you know what's for the best if you don't even know what it is?" Courtney asked, talking more to herself than Gwen at that point. The question had been bugging her all night. Duncan seemed determined that she didn't need to know his secret. If it wasn't that bothersome then Courtney couldn't understand why she wasn't allowed in on it.

Courtney had never kept a secret from Duncan. The two had got drunk during a party a few months after they started dating and somehow spent the whole night on the roof of the party hosts house, letting each other spill everything they were holding inside. Duncan told Courtney how his parents never really wanted kids and had sent all three of their children to boarding school at the first opportunity. Courtney told Duncan how her mother had died when she was a baby, and how she had always hated herself for not caring more than she did. It wasn't that Courtney didn't love her mother, but she didn't feel like she knew her. Her father never talked about her much about her mother; it wasn't a topic either ever brought up. It was only the occasional 'You're so like your mother because dot dot dot' that Courtney could gather any information about her.

"Duncan has his reasons." With a wave of her hand the Goth walked past the prep, finishing their discussion.

Courtney quickly turned on her heel, "Gwen, I-" But Gwen was gone, no where to be seen. Courtney let out a sigh of frustration and defeat. It wasn't a good day for her. Everyone kept bombarding her about Duncan, and even Heather-Heather the Queen Bee who thought she was too good to talk to Courtney-offered her fake condolences for the lost couple. Courtney had seen Duncan's jaw grind when he saw the two girls talking, and if it had been any other person, Courtney would have continued a conversation to to annoy her ex. But Heather was not someone Courtney wanted to spend any time with.

He had tried his best to avoid Courtney all day-though that was found difficult when Heather tried to intervene-but Duncan found his opportunity to talk to his now ex-girlfriend before last period. They were both stood outside English class with barely anyone else around. He was hoping he had a shot of getting her back. He wanted her back. He needed her back in his life because the last one night alone had done nothing but hurt him, though he would never admit to that.

"Made up your mind yet?" He teased, knowing she had. "You technically never answered me last night."

"Can we just be friends?" Courtney whined. She was already sick of him pestering her for things she refused to give. Until Duncan bucked up and admitted what he was keeping from her, she was not going to take him back. "For me, Duncan?" The innocent look suited Courtney, mostly because she was innocent. With a heavy out-breath, Duncan replied, "For now." He placed a hand on Courtney's bare forearm, causing the young girl to gasp for the second time that day.

"Duncan, you're freezing!" She exclaimed. Realizing what he had done, Duncan removed his hand at a fast pace. He was usually good at hiding the body temperature with layered clothes (thank God for cold summers in Canada), but he wasn't quite thinking straight.

"Am I?" He acted like he had no idea what she was talking about. "I feel fine, perfectly fine. Nothing wrong with me." Duncan said, making Courtney grow suspicious of his behavior. When she didn't drop the strange glare, Duncan caved.

"I promised myself I wouldn't do this but," he muttered so quietly that Courtney could only just about make out the words. "I'm gonna tell you something-No," he stopped himself, "I'm going to show you." Duncan sucked up a deep breath. The others were going to kill him-Nigel Black especially. But Duncan figured she didn't need to know the whole truth, just the part that didn't concern her-even if that was the smallest part.

"You're going to show me?" Courtney asked, curiously. Giving Duncan another funny look, but a funny peculiar look this time. Duncan nodded his head to answer the question. "Show me what? It better not be anything sexual, we've been-"

"It's nothing like that!" Duncan quickly assured her. Courtney was a bit of a prude on that side of things. "Meet me at the park at midnight." He told her, quickly disappearing inside their AP English class where they luckily had assigned seats on opposite sides of the room.

Courtney gave him a nod before she took her own seat, trying to guess what was going on with him. She couldn't help but wonder if this was what he was keeping from her, though she had no idea why they had to meet up so late at the park. But she didn't try to second guess what was going on inside her ex's head.

Before Duncan could even leave the school building, he found himself surrounded by a mob of angry teenagers who would usually call his friends.

"WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?!" Bridgette yelled, which was rare for her. She never lost her cool, with anyone. But her face was burning red and her temperature was rising. It wasn't that she was against Courtney knowing, but Bridgette did not want to anger her best friends father.

"HE THINKS ITS A GOOD IDEA!" Gwen answered, just as mad as her little blonde friend. Gwen was less against the idea of Courtney finding out anything. It wasn't up to any of them to tell her the truth, it was up to her father, but he had opted to not tell her.

"That's because it is." Geoff said, being the only one who was staying calm in the situation. Being the elected leader of the group required a level head about these situations, which Geoff had over everything.

"No, it isn't," Trent disagreed. "Courtney has got a big mouth, she's bound to tell someone because she won't be able to keep it in." He protested. He really liked Courtney, but not enough to trust her with such a life changing secret. "And who was she rubbing elbows with today? Heather!"

"Rubbing elbows? Seriously dude, this isn't the nineteenth century." Duncan chipped in, ready to pounce on anyone who tried to stop him from telling Courtney anything. No one else had to turn up at the park and expose themselves, Duncan was happily going to go through with it by himself. Courtney didn't have to be none the wiser to the rest of their group.

"You've really done it this time, Duncan." Bridgette added after a long pause as she turned to leave her friends.

"Courtney deserves the truth, and that's what she's going to get." Duncan told the remaining few with the glowing confidence he usually held when he thought he was in the right. It usually meant he was in the wrong, but at this point Duncan was more concerned about getting his girlfriend back than caring about his friends.

The clock took an awful long time ticking to midnight. Courtney sat and watched it for the last forty-five minutes before finally leaving her house fifteen minutes before the time Duncan had given her. Luckily for Courtney, Nigel was out of town on business once again, so she had the freedom to walk out of the house at any hour. It was a short walk to the park gates where Courtney assumed she was meeting Duncan, her winter coat wrapped tightly to her chest.

"BOO!" Duncan yelled in his ex-girlfriends ear, causing her jump five feet off the ground. She turned around and slapped him playfully in the chest, angry that he would even scare her like that when he knew she scared easily. "Come on then." Duncan said when he'd stopped chuckling like a serial killer. He stood behind Courtney and covered her eyes with his hands.

"What are you doing?" She giggled tiredly before mentally slapping herself for giggling like a child in front of him.

"You'll see."

Duncan led Courtney deep into the park, right to the center. It was the gang's-minus Courtney-usual hand out. No one would usually venture that deep into the overgrown weeds and such, which made it the perfect place for everyone to unwind after school. It wasn't that they didn't want to Courtney to know about the place, it was that they didn't want her to know about them. The park had been their sanctuary away from the Trackers, a place where the could just be them without having to pretend to be human.

"Now," Duncan started. "I want you to promise not to scream, not to freak out and preferably to stay conscious." Courtney didn't understand what Duncan was rambling on about, but agreed all the same. "Are you ready for this? Because I'm not." Duncan whispered in her ear.

"What are you scared of, Duncan?" Courtney asked, worried something was dreadfully wrong with him, or her. She hadn't prepared herself for some sort of deadly disease, but the thought was finally starting to cross her mind. What if he was dying?

"I'm scared that you won't talk to me again, or any of us, for that matter." Duncan's voice took a shaky turn as he tried to keep himself talking so he wouldn't back out of this.

"Us?" Courtney inquired. "Who else is in on this secret of yours?

"You'll see." Duncan continued to lead Courtney, deeper and deeper into the tree's, not bothering to follow the path anymore. He knew what trail to take like he knew each freckle on Courtney's face; it was something burned into his memory for the rest of his life.

Courtney had never ventured far into the park due to her father's over-protectiveness looming over her head, but she felt safe to do it with Duncan. She assumed he had done this before since the park wasn't that far from where they both lived and she knew he had a tendency to wander around late at night. He kept the two of them walking for a good fifteen minutes, occasionally tripping on roots along the way. But when they stopped, Courtney felt the breeze that indicated they weren't entirely surrounded by tree's any more.

"Ready?"

"As I've ever been," Courtney told him. She took a bite of her bottom lip, trying to not let the excitement overwhelm her. She had wanted to know what Duncan was keeping from her for a long time, not just since the break-up the day before. At first she had assumed he was cheating, but her friends had pushed that aside for her; Duncan wasn't that sort of person. When Duncan removed his ice cold hands from Courtney's face she was surprised to see her other friends and Taylor standing before her in a small, grassy clearing.

No one said a word at first, until Bridgette gave her best friend a wide grin and a quick "Hey."

"Uh...hey, guys," Courtney said, glancing over her shoulder at Duncan, then looking back to the group. "What are you all doing here?" She understood that Gwen and maybe Geoff were in on Duncan's secret, probably his cousin too, but seeing Bridgette and Trent there was a bigger surprise than anything else. She had been expecting to be alone with Duncan when he told her-or showed her, like he had said he wanted to, though Courtney didn't know what that meant-whatever his big secret was.

"They're all part of the secret." Duncan answered for his friends, stepping around Courtney and going to stand in line with

"Which is what?" She asked, now taking in each person before her. There was nothing that looked like they had a common ground, which only made Courtney more eager to find out.

"If you're ready for this." Duncan mumbled more to himself than anyone else. Everyone knew it was the signal, though, and they started to change. Before Courtney's eyes the group of people before her started to transform into something she could never had guessed.

Bridgette glittered in the midnight air. Her usual hoodie and shorts were replaced with a baby blue tube dress that was cut jagedly above her knees while a pair of white boots stopped just below them. White wings sprouted from her back and a blue headband wrapped itself around her head, all of it forming out of mid-air.

Trent crouched down onto all four as brown fur started to sprout from every inch of his pale skin, his clothes disappearing beneath the thickness of it all, concealing his identity from anyone who hadn't just witnessed the transformation.

As for Gwen, Duncan and Taylor, their eyes turned from their natural colors into a glowing ruby red. Gwen widened her mouth to reveal a pair of pearly white fangs, while Taylor's poked over her bottom lip from her closed mouth. Courtney couldn't see Duncna's, but she figured his were hiding inside his mouth also.

The CIT gasped for the third time that day, but she was too busy taking a couple steps backwards away from the show to notice. Her hands clasped over her nose and mouth. The sight before her was nothing she could have prepared herself for. What Courtney was seeing was what she been brought up to believe was not humanly possible. The creatures her friends were turning into before her eyes were not real, they were myths and fairy tales. "What in the world?" Was all she managed to get out of her dry mouth as she re-took in each of the five people she thought she knew better than anyone else, plus Taylor.

"We're freaks,"Duncan said. "We know."

"We're not freaks, Duncan," Bridgette contradicted from the other side of the line to him.

"Yes we are, Bridgette," Duncan argued right back, not quite in the mood to tolerate anyone right now. This was the do or die moment where Courtney decided what she was going to do now that she finally knew the 'big secret'.

"Quiet," Geoff yelled. "Both of you." He was the only one who looked like his normal self. Nothing had happened to him, he was still the same old Geoff that Courtney knew, which did let a sigh of relief wash over her because at least not everything had changed.

Bridgette and Duncan apologized for their behavior. Geoff continued by stepping in front of the group, taking a step towards the shocked teenager. "Courtney, are you still with us?" He asked, making sure she hadn't had a stroke over the past few minutes.

"I don't know, am I?" She responded by looking back and fore from each of her friends, not knowing what was happening. Gwen took a step towards Courtney, Courtney took a step backwards. Geoff was one thing, but Gwen wasn't quite herself.

"I won't bite." That sentence only made Courtney's eye's widen in fear. She hadn't been thinking about the biting. Was she some sort of snack for the lot of them? Is that why Duncan had waited so long to tell her? Wait before her next diet so she could be the next full-sized meal?

"You're scaring her, Gwen." Geoff told the goth chic. "I'll do it." Geoff looked back towards Courtney, who, after slightly panicking over the food thing, had come back to a rational state of thinking.

"Someone care to explain?" She asked, looking around the group for the umpteenth time. Her brain was still having a little time processing what was going on around her.

"What's to explain? What you see is what you get." Taylor said nonchalantly, taking a seat on the ground.

"Keep your mouth shut, Taylor!" Duncan snapped at his cousin, giving her a swift kick to the ribs. Taylor didn't even blanch, she stayed perfectly still as if the assault hadn't happened. But Courtney saw it.

"What do you want to know?" Trent questioned Courtney, now looking like his human self again. It was easier for Trent to be involved in the conversation if he was able to speak and help Courtney out. Duncan had explained to everyone before he left to meet Courtney about what he planned to tell her. There were things Nigel wouldn't approve of her knowing, so Duncan decided to stick to the extreme basics.

"How? When? Why? All the basic info." Courtney babbled, not knowing what to ask, or what to expect next. She took a seat on a bench to her right as she waited for the group to come up with all the right answers. Bridgette took a seat beside her, and to her surprise, Courtney didn't flinch. Bridgette wasn't the scariest of people.

"It's a birth right," Bridgette explained. "Well, it is for me anyway. My grandmother was a fairy on my mothers side, so I have fairy blood. My fathers side are sorcerer's, but I don't have any of those kind of powers. I'm not a half-breed." Courtney nodded her head, not taking any of it is, and not brave enough to ask what a half-breed was.

Duncan found his way to kneeling in front of Courtney, resting his hands on her lap. He'd put away the fangs and monster eyes as to not scare her any more. "For me, it's different. When I was seventeen I got bitten and...well, I've been a vampire ever since. It's not as bad as it sounds, though, I promise."

"And exactly how long ago was that?" Courtney asked, swallowing hard and taking in many deep breaths.

"Almost three thousand years..." Duncan replied sheepishly. His age wasn't brought up often.

Courtney's eyes widened and she said the first thing on her mind, "What, did you go to school with Jesus or something?" Her brain was having a harder time processing her boyfriend's age than anything else that had been thrown at her in the last few minutes.

It took a little while, but Courtney came through unscathed. She admitted to herself that she was happier knowing the true identities of her friends as opposed to being left out of it.

"Are you scared?" Bridgette asked, noticing how easily Courtney was already teasing Duncan.

"Surprisingly, no." Courtney stood up and took a step towards the other's. "If you were going to hurt me you would have already, I know I'm safe with you guys."

"And you can't tell anyone about this." Trent told her.

Courtney nodded her head and replied, "Anyone I would tell is already in on this, anyway."

* * *

A/N: Aww.

That was sweet ^_^ And weird o_O

How you guys holding out so far? You enjoying?I hope you are!

This week has gone by a lot faster than the first week did, wow. Can't believe it's Friday already!

Oh, and good news! I GOT A JOB! I had my training day on Wednesday and I start on Monday! YAY! So things are gonna be a bit busier for me now =P BUT I DON'T MIND! Busy is better than what I was doing before...

Big thank you to Lepope1234, AHRedDeath, Tiggystretch, ThatSuperHotSexyBookWorm and kutiekat44 for the wonderful reviews!

And Tiggystretch did raise an excellent question; What's the difference between the original series and this one?

Well, if you're looking for some major plot changes or something that revolutionizes the way you see this series, you're not gonna get it. Think of the original series as a first draft. This is just my rewrite. My first rewrite. There are only spelling and grammar differences, and I've mashed chapters together to make them longer. As for the overall series, there's more fluency between them. When I was first writing this story I didn't know all of the things that were going to happen in the future books. _*SPOILER* For example, Courtney wasn't originally a Princess, that's just something I made up on the spot and ended up rolling with it for eight stories. While in this rewrite, I do know about it and you'll notice the little hints about it on the way (Duncan working at the Palace, people not wanting to talk to Courtney (I have that down as they were warned before hand to not tell her she's a Princess), the uncertainty when talking about her mother. *SPOILER OVER*_

So in conclusion, no, there aren't a lot of differences going on, at least not major ones, only ones that you would probably notice if you had the original and this version side by side. But, at the same time, these stories aren't the exact same as what they originally were when I started this project.

Thanks for reading, please review (:

Love ChloeRhiannonX


	4. Understanding

**Chapter Four**

**Understanding**

The night had ended before Courtney wanted it to, and she found herself walking home with Duncan and Bridgette. They had both reverted back to their human looks and Courtney felt satisfied that she had learnt a lot from the few hours she had spent with them. But the following morning Courtney wanted nothing more than those few precious hours she had given up last night. But she made it through the day, though a bit sluggish in her wake.

Their usual lunch time spot was where the majority of the group were sitting. But Bridgette and Courtney had a late Biology class and were heading over to meet their friends.

The CIT took that opportunity to question her best friend.

"I'm still in a bit of shock." Courtney admitted openly. The surfer couldn't help but smile to herself. It wasn't that Courtney wasn't embarrassed to ask questions around her other friends, but she knew Bridgette would be the most honest with her.

"It is a bit shocking at first." She replied, hoping to comfort her friend from shock. When Bridgette had first found out that her closest friends were hiding secrets similar to her's she had also been shocked.

"You're a fairy, Duncan, Gwen and Taylor are Vampires, and Trent is a werewolf." Courtney stated as if it wasn't obvious enough.

"Okay, a lot of shock." Bridgette laughed, causing Courtney to crack a smile on her stone cold face. She hated to admit it, but she already felt so comfortable with the secret, almost as if she had known all along.

Once the laughter died down, Courtney continued talking.

"Can I ask you about Geoff?"

"What do you want to know about him?" Bridgette asked, knowing what Courtney was going to ask. The CIT didn't look Bridgette straight in the eye, her gaze was at the floor. Something wasn't quite right with Geoff last night, and Courtney didn't want to put her foot in her mouth asking his girlfriend things she shouldn't interfere with.

"Why didn't he...you know...last night?" The brunette struggled to form words. Bridgette's face lit up with a giggle at her best friends attempt. Bridgette didn't see what was wrong, but she was used to Geoff not changing, it was simply part of life. Courtney, however, was knew to all of this.

"Well he's...he's not quite like us." Bridgette explained, not knowing herself where she was going. "You see werewolves are a unique-" The blonde stopped to think about the correct word to use.

"Breed?" Courtney suggested.

"Yeah, just don't say that around Geoff and Trent." Bridgette warned playfully before continuing. "Okay, you see with Vampires, if one of the parents is a Vampire, then there is a 95% chance that the child will be a vampire as well." Courtney nodded to say she understood, and she was following along with the vampire part so far. "But with werewolves, only one of the offspring can be a werewolf. It will almost always go to the first born son, like Geoff. However, in very rare cases, it misses the first born and goes to the second born son." Courtney nodded again, thinking she understood where her best friend was trying to say. "And Geoff, even though he is oldest, isn't a werewolf. It went to his sister."

"But you just said-"

"Ellie is unique," Bridgette continued over Courtney. "She's the first female werewolf in almost seventy years. That puts a lot of pressure on Geoff because he feels as if he failed, as if he did something wrong." The surfer girl carried on explaining to her best friend. "We did the best thing we could, we made him leader, or in his case, the Alpha."

"I get it." Courtney butted in, seeing how much of a touchy subject it was for her friend. Bridgette did feel very bad for her boyfriend. "So, how long have you been a fairy for?"

"My whole life," she laughed in reply at the strange question. Though Bridgette found it understandable that Courtney knew nothing, to her all of this was obvious.

"Do you have any-" To save Courtney from any awkwardness, Bridgette cut across her. "Powers? Well, I can fly, which is pretty cool, and I can talk to people through my mind. Only problem with that is they have to speak to answer because I can't read minds." Bridgette looked away, sad at the fact. Courtney once again nodded, when still trying to work out what really was happening. The more she learnt the more she had to grasp. She found herself bursting at the seems with new information.

The two girls had finally made it to the cafeteria. They ducked and dodged, in and out of the crowded hall. It was utter chaos as the rain had started pouring down again. They somehow got over to the table where their friends were sitting and sat down in their respected seating.

"Meeting tonight, Bridge. We need to discuss protection." Gwen informed her.

Duncan leaned in for a kiss off Courtney, but she pushed him away, patting his cheek. He was not going to worm his way back in that easily. As she had told him last night after he walked her home; she would give him another chance, but he had to earn it.

"Are you coming to the meeting, Court?" Geoff asked, still laughing at something funny Trent had said before the girls arrived. Taylor immediately stopped her own laughter and turned to the cowboy.

"She can't, she's not one of us." Her eyes squared down on the leader of the group. Taylor was not happy with Geoff inviting her along.

"It doesn't matter, she's still invited." Geoff dominantly replied. "Courtney's one of us now, Tayl, get used to it."

"I don't want to cause any trouble." Courtney told her friends, feeling nervous about attending a meeting. She had no idea her friends even held meetings. She didn't know why they would even need to hold meetings. They were all still teenagers, right? They were all still in school and acting like teenagers, at least.

"No trouble, ignore Taylor," Duncan told his girlfriend. "We want you to be part of this, we wouldn't have let you in on it otherwise." Courtney sucked up a deep breath and nodded her head, agreeing to whatever this meeting was.

"Don't look so nervous," Bridgette told her best friend. "We-well they-won't bite."

"Speak for yourself." Taylor pushed her chair out and stormed away from the group of friends. No one but Courtney looked stunned at her actions, as if no one else had seen it happen. Courtney was starting to wonder if she was losing her mind over this. But when she blinked, Taylor had definitely left.

"What's her problem?" Courtney asked her eyes finding Taylor on her way out of the room. No one wanted to answer her question, but they she was in on the secret now, so she had the right to know.

"You." Geoff said in hushed tones.

Looking at Courtney's confused face, Duncan added to the explanation she needed. "She's had a bad vision about you."

"What do you mean 'vision'?" Courtney questioned her friends, using air quotes to show she didn't know what a vision was. This was all still too new for her.

"Taylor can see the future." Bridgette told her, leaning in closer to her friend so no one else could over hear. Courtney blinked a few times, taking in even more information that she was starting to believe she could have lived without. And then a distant memory struck her from two nights before.

"That's what you two were talking about," Courtney more stated than asked her boyfriend,"the other day by my house."

"You heard that?" Duncan replied, shocked at his girlfriend's natural hearing ability.

"You weren't exactly keeping it quiet."

The day had passed by before anyone saw it, leaving the clock to strike the magic hour and the small group of seven to collect in the center of Muskoka Park. The clearing was still available for them to use, and almost everyone was happy to welcome their newest member to the group.

Courtney Black managed to stifle a yawn, as she rested her head on her boyfriend's lap. It was getting harder for her to keep her aching body awake. Rubbing her eyes, she yawned for the second time and took in the sight of the energetic teenagers around her.

"How are you all so awake?" She questioned her surrounding friends.

Gwen, dangling from a tree branch, answered the girls question. "Vampires don't really need to sleep," she explained. "It's more resting, just kind of lying there with your eyes closed. It's not really necessary."

"And werewolves only need an hour or two to go for a full day," Trent added.

"I'm just as tired as you." Bridgette said, wanting to get her in put. She was sitting in a neighboring tree to Gwen's, letting the full expansion of her wings out.

Before anyone could blink, Duncan had his cousin pinned to the floor. Courtney's head fell from being suspended in mid-air onto the rotting bench below. Geoff and Trent jumped to their feet while Gwen watched with eagerness. Bridgette looked away, not wanting to watch the conflict between the family members.

"Don't even think about it, Taylor." Duncan growled. His red eyes and fangs were exposed for the world to see. Taylor's were too.

"I wasn't going to." She hissed back.

"Have you forgot who you're talking to?" Gwen asked, swinging down from the tree and walking over to where the two vampire's were. Courtney watched on, not sure what was quite going on with them.

"Gwen and Duncan are mind-readers." Bridgette told her, flying over to where Courtney was sitting on the bench.

Geoff ran over to the three vampires and pried Duncan away from his cousin-and that was not an easy task. Not taking is eyes off Taylor, Duncan walked back over to the bench where his girlfriend and fairy friend were sitting. He slumped his body down and everyone acted as if Duncan wa going to jump his cousin again.

"Why are we here again?" Courtney asked after the group had been forced into silence. She genuinely didn't know since no one had said anything.

"To discuss protection against the Tracker's," Trent told her.

"A Tracker is someone who believes in our kind so much that they feel threatened enough to want to take action," Bridgette explained to a confused looking Courtney. "Tracker's are trained at an academy and then let loose in the world. They then hunt down our different kinds and well...It's not a pretty end."

"Such as Heather," Gwen added without thinking.

"Heather?" Courtney shot.

"Yeah, she's after us big-time." Taylor said. Courtney thought back to every passing she had with the bitch, such as yesterday when she asked Courtney about her and Duncan. It hadn't seemed anything other than innocent, but everyone knew Heather was always up to something.

"Watch your eyes!" Duncan yelled at his cousin, noticing they were still a juicy red. "Either keep them closed or go for a run." Courtney noticed how Duncan kept bossing Taylor around, assuming he was much older than she was. Though they looked to be the same age, after Duncan's revelation yesterday Courtney was starting to second guess everything she knew about her friends.

"I can't help it," Taylor admitted honestly, slinking over to where Courtney and her cousin were sitting. "She just looks...delicious." Duncan pulled Courtney closer to him, while Taylor was being her usual hungry self. All that girl did was eat.

"Taylor eats human's." Gwen warned Courtney. "Me and Duncan don't, though." She quickly added, hoping Courtney would understand. It was a choice each vampire went through. To be accepted into most communities you had to not be feeding on humans, though there were the few that did not believe in eating animals and only eating humans. None of those kind of places existed in Canada, though, which meant Taylor was out of luck during her stay.

"Taylor, go for a run." Geoff said, jumping in front of her. "Ellie told me Leah was going to be around tonight." Taylor gave Geoff a funny look, Courtney wandered if the mention of Ellie or this Leah girl had something to do with it, or if it was simply Geoff not letting her snack on his friend.

"If you didn't want me here you could have just said." A gust of wind blew and Taylor was gone. It wasn't the fact that no one wanted her around, it was just she was a handful sometimes. At least now she was Leah's handful.

* * *

A/N: Ooo, this is going gooood.

How's it looking so far? Because I see things getting pretty messy in the up and coming chapters ;)

And ya'll are really lucky that upload day is on a Friday because...I'M GOING TO DISNEYLAND! On Sunday XD I'm coming back on Wednesday =P I'm so excited to go again.

Big thank you to AHRedDeath and Tiggystretch for being my wonderful reviews from last chapter!

Thanks for reading, please review (:

Love ChloeRhiannonX


	5. Acceptance is Important

**Chapter Five**

**Acceptance Is Important**

The weekend past with Courtney spending as much time as possible with Duncan. She wanted to relearn about him. So every night she would let him into her bed and cuddle while he spilled everything he could to her. Courtney found there was so much more to Duncan when he didn't have to lie about things because of his secret.

But Sunday night, for the first time in her life, Courtney was disappointed to find her father home from his business trip. Though he said he wouldn't be staying for long, it did mean Duncan couldn't stay with her for once.

Monday morning drew in quickly and by lunch time Courtney had decided what she was going to do. The cafeteria was buzzing with noise, though it was the first day it hadn't rain since Friday. The regular screaming and shouting all became a blur to Courtney as she weaved her way through the crowd. She didn't stop at her regular table, just gave Duncan a quick kiss on the cheek and letting her friends know she had something she needed to do. Courtney made her way back trough the cafeteria and out the side door where she found the person she was looking for. The young teenage girl was sitting alone with her back to the Science building.

"Hey, Taylor. Can I talk to you?" Courtney approached her boyfriend's cousin. She didn't reply at first, she just looked away, off into the distance. Taylor had opted out of talking with her family and friends after what had happened on Friday. She had stayed away from Duncan's house and spend the whole weekend running around Canada.

"Aren't you scared I'll rip your head off?" She asked, keeping eye contact to a minimum.

"I was..." Courtney trailed off. "But not anymore."

"Good." Taylor replied shortly, pushing herself slowly to her feet. It had taken Taylor a long while to master the art of moving slower than her usual fast vampire pace of life. "I won't rip your head off." She took a step towards Courtney. "I'm trying to stop feeding off humans, but...It's an addiction. It's the only thing I know. No one taught me differently when I was bitten." Taylor looked away again, she couldn't bear to face Courtney after that small revelation. Taylor hadn't told many people her story.

"It's a good thing that you're trying to...stop eating people." Courtney didn't know if it was the right wording, and Taylor laughed at her attempt, but Courtney felt good knowing she had confronted her about it.

Silence took over the two. They were still in the awkward phase with each other. They didn't know each other that well, and neither was really interested to learn.

"Can I ask you something?" Courtney spoke to break the silence. It was something that had bugged her all weekend, but she didn't want to ask Duncan about it.

"You want to know about the vision?" Courtney wondered if Taylor could secretly read minds like her cousin. The vampire sighed, her dark eyes heavy against her perky face. Taylor knew Courtney would want to know about the vision, but she knew better than to explain it to her. "Listen, Courtney, the vision I had, it's...it's complicated, okay? There's a lot of factors that need to come into play for it to even have been a real vision, so I wouldn't worry yourself too much over it."

"You hate me because of it," Courtney stated.

"I don't hate you." Taylor let out a great sigh. "It's just...I know Duncan and I don't see eye-to-eye, like ever, but he's still my family. And I don't have a lot of family left. I care about him a lot, and the vision I saw...well, I just don't want you to break his heart."

"I'm trying my best not to hurt Duncan. I like seeing him in pain as much as you do," Courtney confessed. She never did want to hurt the man she loved. "And if you don't hate me, can I have a friendly hug? You know, without you ripping my head off." Taylor laughed again, pulling Courtney into a hug. Closing her eyes she felt something pang deep down in her stomach. Hunger. When Taylor's eye's reopened they were blood-red. She pushed Courtney away from her. The CIT stumbled back a bit, not knowing what was going on. She then noticed the two white fangs coming from either side of the teenage girl's mouth.

"RUN." Taylor shouted, and Courtney obeyed. She dodged her way back through the cafeteria and, panting, Courtney sank into a seat between Duncan and Trent at their table. "Hey," she breathed breathlessly, "guys." The group stopped their discussion of protection and focused on Courtney. Trent placed a hand on her back.

"Are you okay?" He asked, truly concerned knowing that Courtney didn't run anywhere.

"I'm fine, just out of breath." She told them, exploding into a coughing fit. "Your hand is boiling." She said, peeling Trent's hand away from her grey sweater-vest. She was already too hot from the unnecessary exercise.

"It's a werewolf thing," he whispered to her. Courtney smiled. Vampire's are cold, werewolves are hot. Total opposites, just like Duncan and Trent themselves. Courtney knew that was why they butted heads so much.

"What happened?" Duncan finally asked once his girlfriend had regained her composure.

"Taylor." Courtney mumbled.

"I am going to kill that little human blood-sucker." Gwen scowled, cracking her knuckles to show how much she wanted to hurt Taylor. Courtney was quickly learning that Gwen was highly against human eating vampires, Duncan was just against his cousin eating her.

"Gwen, it's okay," Courtney quickly said, hoping the goth girl wouldn't go running off after Taylor. "She didn't mean it." The prep continued to explain what had happened, even though she wasn't entirely sure what had gone on. Her friends seemed satisfied enough with the answer, though Gwen still looked as if she was about to burst a blood vessel.

"So, everything's cool between you two?" Geoff asked hopefully. As leader of the group he wasn't fond of conflict between anyone. He'd been giving Duncan one hell of a time over watching his temper around Taylor.

Before Courtney had a chance to tell everyone that her and Taylor were on friendly terms, the girl in question showed up. She wasn't out of breath like Courtney, but she did take a seat on her cousins lap so she could get in closer to her.

"Courtney, I am so sorry. I'm still trying to control myself," she apologized earnestly

"It's okay," Courtney smiled warmly. "It's when you do bite I'll get worried."

"I'll try not to bite," Taylor laughed.

The night time came too fast for some, too slow for others. It wasn't a meeting being held in the park tonight, more like a battleground. Five people were in the clearing, all awaiting the remaining two. But patience grew thin and the battle began.

"Come on, pretty girl," Gwen taunted, her pure white fangs hanging out, her eye's looking bloodshot. "I'll destroy you," she spat. Not once did she break the circular rotation her and Bridgette were walking in, marking the territory between each other.

"Is that a threat?" Bridgette asked, her fairy form intact.

"Well, it wasn't a compliment." Gwen shot back. The two teen's continued to circle each other, their friends shouting encouraging things to them. 'Come on, Gwen. You've got this!' 'Come on, Bridge. You can do this!' 'GWEN! COME ON, STRIKE ALREADY!' She hasn't got a chance, Gwen.'

The cheering was obviously siding with Gwen for the most part as only Geoff had faith in Bridgette. Not even Bridgette had faith in Bridgette. The young fairy girl didn't quite know how she had ended up in a fight against Gwen, but she was sure she was not going to come unscathed.

Both girl's kept eye contact at all times, not glancing another way once. Not even when the infamous couple they had waited on showed up.

"Hey, guys-WHAT ARE THEY DOING?" Courtney screamed, watching as two of her closest friends were about to pounce each other in what appeared to be a fight to the death. Duncan chuckled at her side, and none of the others looked up to greet them, so it was up to him to explain the situation.

"This is practice. We fight each other so if we ever run into trouble, we know how to handle it. It's just harmless fun."

"You guys have a weird way of having fun," she mumbled to herself. Taking a space between the boyfriends of the two fighting, Courtney couldn't help but feel a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach. It was as if someone was watching her. She shot her eyes upwards to the surrounding tees, but she saw nothing out of the ordinary, just a gentle breeze rustling through. The feeling didn't go away.

"Okay! Okay! You win! You win! Forfeit! Forfeit! Forfeit!" Bridgette screamed. Courtney snapped her head back down to the ground just in time to see Gwen straddling Bridgette, her mouth less than an inch away from the blonde's neck. The CIT honestly thought she was going to bite the fairy. But she didn't. Gwen started laughing. She got off of Bridgette and held a hand out to help her to her feet. The surfer girl was also smiling.

'Mental note,' Courtney thought. 'Get normal friends.'

"Aw, Court, where's the fun in that?" Gwen asked as she walked past the brunette. Courtney had forgotten that Gwen could read minds, and just smiled at the goth in stead. She watched as her vampire friend picked up a clear plastic bottle from near a tree and drank down the last few gulps of a sticky, red liquid that Courtney could all too easily identify.

"Okay, who's up next?" Duncan asked, beckoning to the crowd around him. Without hesitation, Courtney stepped forward.

"I want to have a go," she announced, receiving a few snickers from the others. Courtney ignored them.

"You're kind of at a disadvantage," Trent reminded her.

Courtney shrugged. "Trust me, as long as I am not up against Taylor, I'll be fine," the young girl joked, earning more laughs from her peers.

"Any takers?" Duncan asked, a playful smirk placed on his already smug face. He certainly didn't want to go up against his girlfriend, and at first no one else seemed to want to either. Then a figure landed directly in front of Courtney making her jump a step back. No one else flinched. They had expected this to happen eventually.

"I'll have a go," the girl said. Courtney eyed her. She had long, red hair that reached the bottom of her back. She had a tight fitted red t-shirt and tight fitted black jeans. Her skin was unnaturally pale and her emerald-green eyes bore into Courtney's darker ones. The new girl was sniffing at Courtney like she was a fresh piece of meat, but the way she was acting definitely set something off in Courtney's mind. This girl knew who she was.

Geoff took a step between the two before a fight could break out, and not the playful kind.

"Courtney, this is Leah. Leah, this is Courtney." He introduced them to each other. Courtney nodded her head. So this was Taylor's friend. It took a while for Leah to respond, but when she did, she did. The red-head spun on her heel and waved her arms at the others.

"HOW COULD YOU LOT BE SO STUPID?" She yelled. "BRINGING A HUMAN HERE! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?" It wasn't what they had expected for her to say, but everyone suspected Taylor had warned Leah over the weekend about what had happened. Leah knew better than to upset Nigel by telling Courtney the truth, just like the others did.

"Leah, we trust Courtney. She won't rat us out," Duncan replied, calm as ever. Courtney realized that everyone here knew who this girl was, but Courtney had never seen her before in her life.

"Really?" Leah questioned. No one spoke, they all turned their head's away. "So, you do know about Taylor's vision, then." That caught Courtney's attention.

"What about Taylor's vision?" The red-head stood, hands on hips, a Cheshire cat grin widening along her jaw, and Courtney saw the two small fangs unfurling from her gums. Leah realized that Courtney didn't know as much as she thought, which only made her job easier.

"Guys." She finally said, almost ignoring the girl in question, "This is Courtney. Courtney Black!" Courtney wasn't as shocked that the girl knew who she was as she should have been. She figured this had been the girl who was watching her.

"How do you know who I am?" She asked. Curious as to why the redhead actually cared about who she was. But everyone seemed to not notice that Courtney was still there and kept talking about her as if she wasn't.

Bridgette butted in, having been holding her tongue before then. Bridgette, before Courtney, was the newest member of the group. She was the youngest and the one who was still learning a lot about everyone too. Bridgette was the only one who was truly the same age as Courtney, everyone else was a lot older than they were letting on.

"We know who she is, Leah. We still trust her." The young blonde said. Courtney was growing more and more suspicious with every passing second. No one was saying anything that she could grasp onto. It was riddles to her ears. Leah narrowed her eyes at Courtney before replying.

"Well, I don't," she hissed, fangs bare.

"Shove off, Leah!" Trent yelled at her, stepping forward. He knew that Leah was most likely going to reveal more to Courtney than the rest had, starting with Taylor's vision.

Leah slowly walked over to Trent, but she gained speed until she appeared right in front of him. She pushed her face against his, her mouth agape and letting out a faint hiss. "Why don't you dog breath?"

"Can someone please fill me in on what we're talking about?" Courtney asked. Leah and Trent stepped away from each other, and there was silence. It was obvious no one wanted to tell Courtney the truth about Taylor's vision or the full story about why they all worry it would come true.

After an excruciating awkwardness, Taylor caved. She wasn't that good at keeping her visions to herself. "A few hundred years ago, Duncan, Gwen and myself were hiking in some European mountains." Courtney turned her full attention to Taylor. "It was known to be Tracker territory, but back then we were stupid enough to not care about that sort of thing. Tracker's were just like myths to us."

"Anyway, we found this old cave up on the mountain side," Duncan continued. "On the walls were scribbled names of every Tracker that ever was. Past, present and future." He swallowed and Courtney could tell it was getting hard for him.

Taylor took over again. "The thing about the Tracker's is, they somehow know who is going to join their ranks from long before they're born. We haven't figured out how yet...but they know."

"But how do-"

"I'm getting to that," Taylor told an impatient Courtney. "There was a boulder in the middle of the cave. Two names were carved into the stone with some serious precision." Taylor sighed. "The top one said Courtney Reed, the bottom one said Courtney Black."

An evil silence submerged the group of eight, thickening the tension between every single person. Even the wind had stopped for them. They had all known the story, it was being passed down through all the generations who lived on Earth. When Duncan had gotten assigned to Courtney, he knew what he was getting himself into.

Courtney herself was in a stunned pause. She wanted to keep talking, but her brain was in overdrive trying to figure out what it all meant.

"But I'm not a tracker..." Courtney whispered. It was more to herself than to her friends. She was sure she wasn't a Tracker. "And my mother wasn't one, either." That was Courtney Reed. Her mother had died before naming her only daughter, leaving her husband to name her instead. Courtney knew she didn't know an awful lot about her mother, but there was no way her father would have kept something like that from her. Unless he didn't know, either. It seemed like something so small that you could hide from your family. '_Unless you were a complete maniac about it,_' Courtney thought.

"We know you're not," Geoff assured his friend. "But..."

"Your mother was a Tracker, Courtney." Leah continued on, obviously getting kicks from watching Courtney struggle to comprehend all of this. "She left, though. She realized what she was doing was wrong and went back to her rightful place in the world."

"Leah." Courtney heard Duncan growl the girls name from behind her, but she didn't really process it. It was all too much to take in. But Leah still had more to go on with, "Also, Taylor's vision, as I see no one has told you, is that you will join the Tracker's, too. Follow in your mother's footsteps because...well, because you hate our kind, right?"

Before the young girl could hurt Courtney anymore, Trent tackled her to the ground and Gwen pinned her to the floor, clamping her hand over the annoy girls mouth.

Duncan wrapped his arms around Courtney, but she shrugged him off. She needed some time to think this all through. She wasn't going to be a Tracker, she knew better than that. Courtney didn't want to hunt her friends and have them killed, their carcass' hung up on the wall for decoration or whatever it was these people did.

A faint howling could be heard in the distance. Breaking the awkwardness of tension between the small group of teenager's. Gwen jumped off Leah and turned to her werewolf boyfriend, whispering his name. Trent held a hand up, signalling he was listening to the message.

"TRACKER!" He yelled unexpectedly. Everyone jumped into action.

"Just what we needed!" Taylor moaned, flinging her arm's up in the air. She was already set to run off.

Out of no where a little ball of white fluff appeared. Courtney instantly recognized it to be a werewolf who quickly made her transformation into a small teenage girl. She had long blonde hair and dark blue eyes that searched the scene before her.

"Guys, come on." Courtney recognized her as Ellie, Geoff's little sister. She had only seen her once at school, and that was from a distance as she had talked to her brother. "TRACKER!" She yelled. "Move it, move it, move it!" Leah looked unimpressed by the young girl wolf. "It's not Courtney, Leah. It's a real tracker!" Leah rolled her eyes and had already run off in the blink of an eye.

Duncan hauled Courtney onto his back, "Hold on tight!" He told her.

Trent had already transformed into his own werewolf form and Ellie was quickly following suit. Taylor dashed after Leah and Gwen was already heading back to base. Geoff hoped onto Trent's back and the last few stragglers headed off into the night.

* * *

A/N: TRACKER.

How ya'll enjoying the story now?

But yes, I AM BACK FROM DISNEYLAND! I loved it. It was great. It's partially the reason this update is a day late. My bad! The other part is work. We got back at 9:17AM on Wednesday morning after a 14 hour-long coach trip where I managed to get maybe 30 minutes sleep. So I was just exhausted all day Wednesday, and then I went back to work on Thursday and I was working yesterday and I just had no energy to do anything by the end of it. But today is my day off, and though I'm still tired, I know you guys deserve an update!

Thank you to AHRedDeath for being my ONLY reviewer! Not that I'm mad or upset. I know to take every review I can get, so mega mucho thank you! And Maddi? GET YOUR ASS IN GEAR ON THESE REVIEWS! I WAS COUNTING ON YOU AND NOW YOU'VE LET ME DOWN! Bitch...;P

Chapter should be up on time next week!

Thanks for reading, please review :)

Love, ChloeRhiannonX


	6. Cards On The Table

**Chapter Six**

**Cards On The Table**

Courtney had been expecting some mansion on the upper side of town, but what she got was an averaged sized three bedroomed house in a small, quiet neighborhood that did not look like the party boy that Geoff really was lived anywhere near it. But Duncan had assured Courtney that this was Geoff's house, the place they referred to as their base.

The inside was more on the posh side with a Victorian era theme running through the walls. The dwindling remainder of the group from the park were crowded inside the skinny lounge area that had a sofa lining two opposite walls with a glass coffee table between them. Courtney found herself seated beside Bridgette with Duncan resting on the arm of the sofa.

"Is everyone here?" Geoff asked, doing a quick head count.

"Where's Leah and Taylor?" Duncan asked, taking his own glance around the room. Noticing his cousin and her friend were missing. However, just as he said it, Taylor walked in through the door.

"I'm here," she announced, having heard the conversation from outside. "But Leah flew off." Taylor looked troubled at the thought. Leah was old enough to take care of herself, but Taylor still worried for her, especially now with all the Trackers in town.

"Ellie, who was it?" Trent asked, changing the subject off the redhead he despised.

"Heather," Ellie gasped, collapsing on the sofa beside Bridgette as she turned back into her human self. The young girl was only physically a few years younger than the rest and looked almost exactly like her brother, though Courtney doubted Geoff called pull off pink spaghetti straps and a denim skirt. Ellie looked like an average fourteen year old, but Courtney was learning to not trust her eyes.

"Typical," Gwen muttered. "We can't do anything without her interfering." The goth girl hated Heather the most out of all the Tracker's she had encountered over the years. Though Heather was a fairly young Tracker, the two had a really bad history together.

Bridgette rested her head on her best friends shoulder, but instantly shot back up right. "Are you okay, Court? You're shivering."

"Huh?" Courtney turned to face her fairy friend, having been too caught up in her investigating her surroundings to hear what Bridgette had said.

Geoff, who was perched on the arm of the other couch, started to fiddle with a dial fixed to the wall behind him. "That should do it," he mumbled. Almost instantly, Courtney felt a rise in temperature. The others didn't feel much because of the set temperature in vampire's and werewolves, and even Bridgette was warm enough from flying so fast to get back to base.

"Thanks," The brunette mumbled, all eye's on her. Ellie took it as her opportunity to introduce herself. "Hi," she smiled widely, "I'm Ellie, Geoff's sister." Courtney shook her extended hand firmly aross Bridgette, smiling right back at her.

"Hi, I'm Courtney, Duncan's girlfriend."

"Oh, I know who you are." Ellie nodded her head, "You're very popular around here." A small shade of pink spread over Courtney's cheek. Popular? Her? That was unlikely.

"Can it, puppy!" Duncan growled playfully, throwing a cushion in the girl's face. Ellie laughed, throwing the cushion onto the floor and pouncing on it, almost like a dog. Courtney couldn't help but see how happy everyone here was. This was a family to them.

"You give werewolves a bad name." Trent teased, taking the pillow away from her. Ellie laughed again. Courtney saw that Ellie was similar to a puppy: just full of energy. She hadn't really thought of werewolves as dogs before, mainly because that would have been an insult to Trent and Geoff, and because Trent and Geoff were nothing like Ellie. If you knew of this world like Courtney did now, you could easily tell that Ellie was a werewolf. She simply behaved like one.

As the group continued to laugh among themselves, all thoughts of Tracker's abandoned, an older woman entered the room and caught the instant attention of Courtney. At a first glance she looked like an older version of Ellie, but she had much darker hair and a pair of wings protruding from her back. But the wings didn't look like Bridgette's, they were a light purple with a few holes torn through and even a corner missing with teeth marks in it's place.

"I thought I'd heard voices," she spoke softly, obviously not caring that there was a group of rowdy teenagers invading her home.

"OH GOD, TINA!" Bridgette gasped, rushing over to the woman. The blonde's hand went straight to the patched up scar on the woman's cheek before managing to poke a finger right through one of the holes in her wings. "These aren't healing, are they?"

"I'm fine, Bridge," Tina insisted, trying to wave off the blonde who was inspecting her. "It look's a lot worse than what it is."

"You'd know that because?" Geoff asked, shaking his head at the older girl. He got to his feet too, pulling a medical bag from a shelf in the corner that Courtney hadn't noticed.

"I just do." Tina answered, taking a look around the room. Her eyes held a gaze with Courtney. "Why is there a human in my house?" She asked in a mono-toned voice. Geoff whispered something in Tina's ear and a wide grin spread across her face. "OH MY SCARLATINAN GODS, YOU'RE COURTNEY!" She shrieked, running and jumping on the sofa where Bridgette had recently exited, engulfing the young brunette in a bear like hug. Courtney didn't quite know where to put her arms because of the injured wings that were still poking out into the room.

"Hi?" She managed to squeak, patting Tina lightly on the back. Bridgette and Ellie were giggling at the sight, while everyone else was in their own conversation, ignoring the scene.

"Court, this is Tina," Bridgette introduced the two. "She's Geoff and Ellie's legal guardian for human purposes."

"...She's what?" Courtney couldn't have been more confused.

"I'm Tina, just Tina," the older woman reintroduced herself. "I'm in charge of Geoff and Ellie when they need things like permission slips signed and what-not. It would look too suspicious to the outside world if a sixteen and fourteen year old were left to their own devices."

"And that's totally normal in your world?"

Tina laughed. "Of course not! But Ellie's twenty-eight and Geoff's thirty-six, so we don't really have that problem-"

"WHAT?!"

"Thanks, Ti," Geoff muttered. "We hadn't got to that part yet."

Tina looked up at Geoff with guilty eyes, excusing herself from the room as quickly as possible. Duncan squeezed Courtney's shoulder and Geoff replaced the empty seat beside her, wanting to explain more of the truth. He could see Courtney was struggling to keep up with everything, so he was trying to ease her into things one step at a time. Thanks to Tina, this next step came early.

"Werewolves age at a very slow rate, that's why the three of us," he motioned between himself, his sister and Trent, "all look so young. Young enough to pass for High School students, at least." Courtney slowly nodded her head. Geoff pointed to each person as he spoke, "Very few people in this room are the age they look. I'm thirty-six; Ellie's twenty-eight; Trent's thirty-two; Duncan's two-thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine; Gwen's four hundred and twenty-three; Taylor's three hundred and forty-six; you and Bridge are both almost seventeen."

Courtney swallowed hard. It was definitely a lot to take in at once. Only one of her friends was really the same age as she was.

Luckily, Tina stuck her head back into the room and glared at Taylor. "First rule for vampire's in this house; no fangs." And then she disappeared again.

Taylor nodded her head, double-checking to make sure her fangs weren't actually out. They weren't. That was the first sign to not feeding on human's for her. Courtney was in perfect reach and her fangs had not been out. Courtney noticed it too and gave Taylor a small smile.

Before Taylor could give Courtney some reassurance that she wasn't going to try anything, Leah had made a reappearance to the group. "Sorry, guys I-WHAT IS SHE DOING HERE?" The angry redhead shrieked at the sight of Courtney sitting in Geoff's house.

"Why are you here?" Duncan asked. Leah didn't bat an eyelash.

"I'm part of the pack, SHE'S not!"

"She is now, Leah," Geoff told her. Everyone in the room turned to face the party boy. He had a happy grin on his face, and was looking directly at Leah. This was news to everyone. Not that anyone else was taking the news like Leah was.

"Can she fly? No! Can she run fast? No! Can she climb a tree? N-" Courtney cut across the bashing the redhead was giving her, "No, I can't fly. I'm not a fast runner like you guys, but I did manage to outrun Heather in gym. And yes, I can climb a tree!"

"Works for me," Geoff laughed.

The group spent the night at Geoff's place to save them finding their own way home in the dark, especially with the Tracker's still out there. It was slightly cramped with Geoff, Bridgette, Gwen, Trent and Leah in Geoff's small bedroom, and Ellie, Taylor, Courtney and Duncan in Ellie's even smaller bedroom, even though the vampire's didn't sleep, they were still resting. But they had managed the cramped space, and were mostly enjoying a relaxing sleep until the argument broke out.

"THAT FILTHY LITTLE HALF-BREED-" Tina yelled, only to be cut across.

"WHAT'S WRONG WITH HALF-BREEDS?"

"EVERYTHING IS WRONG WITH HALF-BREEDS! ESPECIALLY HER!"

"THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH HALF-BREEDS!" Geoff screamed. Courtney had never heard him get so mad in his life. This was a new side to Geoff.

"What are they arguing about?" The brunette yawned. She was lying on a make-shift bed made out of blankets and duvets with Duncan's arm wrapped tightly around her waist. She squeezed his wrist but he didn't budge, nuzzling his nose into her neck.

"Half-breed's," Taylor told her, looking at Courtney as if she should have known that. Duncan realized he had never explained it to his girlfriend and took it upon himself to explain, "A half-breed is someone who is half of one thing and half of another. For instance, Leah is a half-breed," Duncan stopped to make sure Courtney was keeping up. "She's half vampire, half fairy."

"That's what they're arguing about," Bridgette butted in, entering the room with a sleepy look on her face and rolling into bed with Ellie.

"So, Tina doesn't like half-breed's. I get it."

"She hate's them," Ellie corrected her. She was curled up in a ball on her bed, her expression read 'still aseep', but Courtney was sure she'd been awake for a while now, especially after Bridgette had rolled over her.

"Why?" Courtney tried to sit up to start getting ready for school, but no one else seemed to care too much.

"Um-Well, its...complicated," Ellie stuttered, not knowing if she should tell Courtney the truth or not. Everyone seemed to be having a hard time knowing what to tell Courtney and what not to tell Courtney. Some things led to others.

"Go ask her," Gwen butted in, jumping in through the open window to stopping Ellie from stuttering anymore.

"ARE YOU KIDDING?" Bridgette yelled, sitting up on Ellie's bed, clearly more awake now. "She'll rip her head off!" The room fell silent. No one wanted to be the one to tell Courtney the truth. If Tina ever found out that they had told it would be the end of them, no one wanted to risk it. Not that anyone was particularly scared of Tina, she was harmless to those she liked. But she had a bad habit of picking fights which made her more skilled than she looked.

Courtney huffed, lying back down in bed, snuggling back up to her boyfriend. "I just want to know why Tina hates half-breeds," she sighed, hoping someone would have sympathy with her because she was out of the loop.

"She's had bad encounters with half-breeds," Goff answered. He as leaning on the door frame to his sister's room, looking down at the floor where Courtney was ying. "But not all of them are like the ones she knows." The party boy took a seat next to his girlfriend on he bed and placed an arm around her.

"That's all I wanted to know," Courtney replied.

"What did you want to know?" Tina asked, she had appeared in the doorway where Geoff had been. She had her purple fairy wing's out again, but her appearence wasn't half as bad as it had been the previous day. Only the bite mark on her right wing remained, and that looked liked it wasn't going anytime soon.

"I wanted to know ifffff-" Courtney started, but couldn't think of an excuse.

"If we had a math test next week," Gwen said, saving her.

"Yeah, just talking about school," Ellie added, with her back to Tina to make sure she couldn't detect the lie. Tina was good at pulling Ellie for her lies. Even though she was technically an adult, Ellie definitely didn't act it. She got into her teenage roll and stayed there; while they were on Earth, at least.

"You guy's hate school," Tina laughed, not sure if she should take the young werewolf serious or not.

"What's your point?" Gwen asked quickly. Tina walked away from the door, shaking her head, but then turned back.

"Oh, Ellie, Trent, I need you two to go into town for me," she called out to both bedrooms.

Ellie and Trent didn't miss a moment, the two ran out of their respective rooms, turning into their fluff-ball selves as they did so. It was harder to conceal themselves during the day, but it should have been early enough to pass off for rather large and lost dogs if anyone was around to see them.

Everyone else went off to do their own thing. Most were just lazing around, thinking of excuses so they wouldn't have to go to school.

Courtney and Bridgette were sitting alone in the kitchen together, eating their cereal, both actually wanting to go to school. Everyone else would give anything not to go, mostly because this wasn't their first time. After learning everyone's true ages, Courtney came to realize that they had all been to High school before. Courtney loved school, but having to repeat High school sounded like a horrible cause.

"Bridge," Courtney whispered. "Will you tell me more about Tina?" The blonde girl slid off the work counter and into an empty chair at the table.

"Okay. The first thing you need to know is she is Geoff and Ellie's half-sister."

"Why didn't they say that yesterday?"

"They hate being known as sibling's," Bridgette said, looking away as she did so, hoping no one was in earshot. "They have the same dad, but Tina hate's him for walking out on her and her mother when she was a baby." Courtney nodded her head, knowing what it felt like to grow up with only one parent. "Then, after Ellie was born, he walked out on them too. No ones heard from him since. Tina, Geoff and Ellie like to stick together, but hate people knowing why."

"I understand," Courtney replied, looking down at the tiled flooring as if in a trance. She understood Tina's hatred for her father. Even if her mother had died when she was little and not walked out, Courtney still had a little pain in her heart directed at her mother. Even more so since Leah had revealed her true nature as a Tracker last night. So much had happened she hadn't really had time to process that information thoroughly. Especially the part where she became a Tracker.

A little brown ball of fluff came bounding in from one door, and running out the other. Bridgette and Courtney followed Ellie into the living room, where she had collapsed out on the sofa in her human form once again.

"Guys," she gasped. "We have to get out of here."

"What happened?" Geoff asked, rushing to his younger sister's side and handing her a bottle of water.

"Trackers," Trent replied for her as Ellie gulped down her drink. "All over town. Couldn't move anywhere without someone spotting us. Came straight back." The room burst out into a sea of noise. Everyone was panicking. They had no idea how to deal with a Tracker attack like that. It had never happened to any of them before.

"Where are we gonna go?" Duncan asked, jumping onto a chair and yelling over the noise.

"We-we-." Geoff stopped trying to talk over the noise and whistled loudly in stead. "HUSH UP!" He shouted.

"There's no where we can go," Taylor said, slumping her whole body down onto a spare seat. She was a pessimist at heart.

"There is one place we can go," Geoff told them.

"What about Courtney?" Bridgette asked, transforming into a fairy and flying up to Geoff. Everyone hated to say it, but there was only one place they could go, but Courtney wouldn't be able to come.

"She'll have to stay here," he responded. His whole body was emotionless. The group knew why. Courtney didn't.

"Why can't I come with you?" Courtney asked, jumping up beside her boyfriend. Duncan took her hand in his, but refused to look her in he eye's. No one looked at Courtney. They were still hiding secrets from her, she could tell.

"Human's can't go," Gwen answered. The CIT sunk from her feet and onto the couch behind her. A million thought's rushed around inside her brain. Would she ever see her friends again if they left? Probably not. The only thing Courtney could do was tell herself it was for the best. Their safety came before Courtney's want's.

"I'm staying," Duncan said, sliding down next to girlfriend and pulling her into a hug. Tears were now starting to form in her eye's. Duncan knew he couldn't really leave without Nigel's permission; they would have to talk.

"No," Courtney told him. "You have to go."

"I've lost you once," Duncan wiped a few stray tears from her beautifully tanned cheeks. "I don't want to lose you again."

"I'll be fine." But Courtney didn't sound fine. She sounded empty. "I'll still be here when you get back."

No one went to school that day. It was spent packing and saying goodbye to Courtney. Bridgette had spent time with her parents, explaining the situation to them. Gwen and Trent had spent time packing up their apartment while Ellie and Geoff helped Tina with their house. Taylor fluttered between everyone, helping where they could due to the lack of things they had to pack for themselves. Duncan had stopped by the Black household, talking with Nigel who had encouraged him to leave, despite what Duncan wanted. Courtney had no idea what was going on, and didn't know of her boyfriend and father's talk. She spent the day trying to help anyone she could, but she was very absent.

Night drew in and darkness surrounded the household. The people in side were running around frantically, making sure they had all packed everything up. All except Courtney. Courtney was sitting on the sofa, hugging her knee's to her chest. Crying softy, so no one would be able to hear her. She was still coming to terms with the departure of her friends. Courtney had never really had friends before, only Bridgette. Now even she was leaving her.

"It'll be like we were never here," Tina said, swinging open the door and allowing the cold night air to entangle with the house.

"You can have a normal life," Leah added, not really caring about the brunette before her. Courtney pushed the tears to the back of her eye's and forced a smile on her face. All she could do was nod. A normal life would be great, if only she didn't know about this one.

"Let's get going before the sun comes up," Geoff told them, eyeing up the sun rising in the east. Duncan pulled Courtney into an ever lasting hug. Gently, he pressed his lips to her's. The kiss held so much passion that no one would ever understand.

"I love you, Princess," he whispered in her ear, before leaving the house for good.

Courtney's place was nothing like Geoff's. It was extra large, with a hint of too much class. Even Courtney's bedroom was bigger than Geoff and Ellie's combined. It was painted a dusty pink color, with an almost matching colored carpet. The three armoire's that lined the walls matched the pine writing desk that fell under the open window. The brunette was lying face down on her queen-sized bed.

"How's daddy's little Princess?" She hadn't even heard her father come in. Nigel Black was a middle-aged man, only about thrity-six. He was average height and average weight. Nothing too special about him at a first glance.

Nigel took a seat on the edge of his daughter's bed. Courtney took in a deep breath. "Can you please not call me Princess. Please?" She asked, not even bothering to move to face him.

"I get it, you're growing up," he said with a sigh, nodding his head as if he understood. Truth was he had never been a teenage girl or daddy's little Princess. Courtney knew her father didn't understand.

"No, dad," This time Courtney sat up to reassure he father she was going to still be his little Princess. "It's not that, it's-" Courtney trailed off. She didn't really want to tell him that it reminded her of Duncan. Her father hadn't known of her boyfriend. She feared he wouldn't have approved of a boy like Duncan. He wasn't exactly someone you wanted to bring home to meet your parents, though Courtney would always love him regardless.

"You still upset about your friends?" He asked. She nodded her head. Courtney had informed her father that her friends had left town. He hadn't asked for specifics, though Courtney doubted she would have been able to give him any if she had asked. "You'll make new friends in no time," he told his daughter.

The two sat in silence for a few minutes. They rarely got to spend time together, so it felt nice for them to just sit.

"It's getting late," Nigel finally said. He bent down and kissed he top of Courtney's head. "Get some sleep." He walked over to the door and switched the light off. "Goodnight."

"Night," Courtney mumbled. Her heart just wasn't there.

* * *

A/N: Poor Courtney :(

Things will be okay again...maybe ;)

So how are ya'll this week? I got this chapter up on time! Whoop whoop.

Today we're celebrating Lila's birthday! But idk if she reds this story so...Lila's my co-author for my other story TDM and thus there will be an update on that today XD Just a heads up for any of ya'll who read it!

Thanks to AHRedDeath for, once again, being my only reviewer! Love ya dude!

Thanks for reading, please review (:

Love ChloeRhiannonX


	7. Life at its Normal-est

**Chapter Seven**

**Life At It's Normal-est**

The school felt empty without the buzz of the group around. Or at least it felt that way to Courtney. The rest of the school was happily moving on with their lives. It was as if no one had noticed the absence at all, but it was different for Courtney. Courtney had known they had been there, she had been their friend. She was still finding it difficult to cope with their departure a full two weeks later.

On this particular day, Courtney was sadly arranging her books inside her locker. She was finding it hard to move on like her dad had suggested. Everything reminded her of her friends and she couldn't bring herself to make new ones. And then the unexpected happened. A tall Asian girl slammed Courtney's locker door shut. Courtney tried to avoid looking directly at her, but she was still there.

"Hey, Courtney," the teenage girl fake smiled. "I'm sorry to hear about your loser friends."

"Oh, I'm sure you are, Heather," Courtney said through gritted teeth. Ever since she had found out Heather was a Tracker, Courtney had been trying her best to avoid her. It was harder than it looked since they were in almost every class together.

"Of course I am," Heather sounded offended that Courtney would even think otherwise. "We've been through so much together." The group had formed back in Freshman year during the first few weeks. Courtney and Bridgette had been invited to hang out with the other four after Geoff had been paired with his future girlfriend in one of their classes. Everything had really fallen into place from there, though Courtney figured it had all been planned out beforehand.

"I don't want to be late for class." The CIT pushed her way past the devil, receiving a mouth full of hair as Heather swung herself around to face her once again.

"You can always come sit by me and Lindsay at lunch, if you want," she offered. Courtney turned and eyed Heather. It wasn't a kind offer if it came from her, though Heather look earnest in her intentions of just letting Courtney have someone to sit with for a change.

"Sure," Courtney replied sarcastically. "Right after I marry Harold." She rolled her eyes and started walking again.

"Suit yourself," the raven haired girl called after her.

Courtney spent the rest of the day trying to forget about Heather. It didn't really work. No matter where Courtney went she was sure Heather was watching her, which wasn't as ridiculous as it seemed. It wasn't until the last bell had rung for the day and Courtney was almost positive she was alone, did she realize how un-ridiculous her Heather theory was.

"Pick up, pick up, pick up," Courtney mumbled to herself. She was pacing back and fore in front of her locker, cellphone pressed tightly to her ear. All she wanted to do was listen to her friend's reassuring voices, tell them what was happening with Heather and for anyone to tell her how stupid she was being about the whole thing. Heather shouldn't have been interested in Courtney if she was a human; Tracker's didn't hunt their own kind.

"Hey, you've reached Bridgette, leave a message and I'll get back to you." A loud beep sounded in the CIT's ear and she groaned before leaving a message. "Bridge, why won't you answer your phone? I need to talk to you-to any of you. I'm gonna go insane here and I think I'm in a spot of trouble. Please call me back." She clicked the disconnect button, turning to leave she almost knocked straight into the last person she wanted to see.

"Where've they gone?" Heather asked.

"I don't know," Courtney sighed, locking her eye's on the she-devil's.

"Come on, you can trust me," Heather said, softening her gaze.

"Trust you?" Courtney scoffed at just the thought. There was nothing trust worthy about Heather. The only reason she even had Lindsay on her side was through vigorous blackmailing, everyone in school knew that much.

"Just tell me!" Heather wasn't playing around anymore. She needed this information.

"I don't know! They didn't tell me." Heather had had enough. She used all her strength to push the brunette against the row of rusting lockers. Courtney, caught off guard, fell back with an 'oomph', hitting her back hard enough to wind her.

"Listen here!" Heather hissed. "You'd better tell me where your pathetic vampire boyfriend is and your freakish loser friends too."

"Or what?" Courtney breathed, her onyx eye's turning into slits. She was never going to rat her friends out, even if she did know where they were. They were her friends, did Heather think she would ever think otherwise?

"Or you'll be next." Heather pushed Courtney back against the lockers and started to strut away, thinking she had won. Courtney was confused.

"What's that supposed to mean?" The brunette question, not letting Heather-or the pain-get to her.

Without turning back Heather answered, "I think you know." Before walking off again. Courtney clutched her shoulder as she stared after her. She was still feeling so very left out of everything.

The view of the ocean was amazing. You could see right out to sea from the top of the cliff. It was just above the beach and was the number one spot for the adrenalin junkies in town who would jump off for the fun of it. The wind was sweeping Courtney's mocha locks from her face. She sat almost directly on he edge, looking across the silent water.

"It's a great view, isn't it?" Courtney jumped a bit at the sound of another persons voice. She had been sitting alone for a few hours. She turned to see a blonde teenager, but it wasn't the blonde teenager she wanted to see.

"Hey, Lindsay," she greeted, turning back to look at the sea. "Yeah, it's great up here."

"It's great for thinking," Lindsay told her, taking a seat beside Courtney.

"It's great for clearing my head," the CIT added.

"Clear it of what, Coral?" Courtney shook her head in disbelief.

"It's Courtney," she corrected the blonde. "I just have memories I want to get rid of." Lindsay nodded her head as if she understood, chances were she didn't. Lindsay wasn't the smartest of people, but she wasn't bad company. Courtney had known Lindsay for a long time since they had attended the same elementary school. They hadn't ever been friends, more like acquaintances who gave a smile of a hello when they passed in the hallway.

Courtney sucked up a deep breath, enjoying her time at the cliff top. It didn't remind her of her friends, which was exactly what she needed. What she didn't need was another intruder on her peaceful time.

"Hey, girlies," the dark haired girl greeted, appearing behind the two. Courtney groaned mentally, wondering why the hell she bothered to get some alone time when she knew Heather had taken it upon herself to stalk her. Lindsay somehow manged to ignore her.

"What are you doing here?" Courtney asked, dusting of her pants as she got to her feet. She was definitely leaving if Heather was staying.

"Like I said earlier, you're next." Before Courtney even had the chance to ask what she had meant by that, Heather took one step too far forward and pushed Courtney off the cliff. Courtney tried to scream, but her lungs didn't seem to work. All she saw was darkness surrounding her and the sound of the gently swaying water gaining on her.

Heather, smiling deviously, watched as Courtney fell from the great height. Lindsay, however, did the only thing she could; she jumped after her. Heather's eye's widened in fear. She hadn't counted on Lindsay's rescuing act, she thought she was on her side.

"I'd better get out of here," she muttered to herself before running off into the woods, more than likely back to the other Trackers.

Down below on the beach, Lindsay was dragging a scared Courtney out of the water. Courtney could swim, but she was in too much shock to function. The two girls collapsed side-by-side on the sand. Courtney turned to face her savior, but her own onyx orbs dilated as she met Lindsay's body.

"Lindsay, your, your, your-," she stuttered.

"A mermaid? I know, cool, right?" Lindsay's leg's had gelled together to form a glittering coral pink fish tail.

Taking deep breaths, Courtney hit her head back on the soft floor and exclaimed, "My life is too weird." All Courtney could do was pray her father wouldn't find out about her incident with Heather. Lindsay lived on the coast and offered Courtney a place to dry off. Courtney was liking Lindsay more and more every minute.

x

Not that Courtney wasn't glad for Lindsay's hospitality, but she was glad to get home that evening after everything the day had unfolded. She walked through the door and called for her father. Instead she was engulfed with a hug from someone a lot smaller.

"Oh, thank the Gods!" The girls voice squeaked. Courtney pulled away and smiled, just checking it was who she hoped it was.

"Bridgette!" Courtney cried, pulling the blonde back in for a hug.

"You're squashing me!"

"Sorry," Courtney said, but still held onto her best friend for a few more minutes. She had never been happier to see anyone in her whole life.

"Are you okay?" The fairy asked, holding her hands on Courtney's forearms. She didn't want to let Courtney go as much as Courtney didn't want to let her go.

"What are you doing here?" Courtney yelled, ignoring her question.

"Taylor had a vision!"

"Heather threw you off a cliff!" Taylor shouted from behind Courtney. The brunette turned to face her other friend.

"Taylor!" She screamed, but didn't hug her. They were still at the respected boundary stage of their friendship, especially after what had happened last time they had hugged.

"Yeah, it's me," she replied, ruining the moment. "What happened? I didn't see anything after Heather shoved you off the cliff. We came back as soon as we could."

"Lindsay saved me."

The three girl's made their way into the next room to sit down. Courtney was too excited to have her friends back to do much other than smile. Bridgette and Taylor were looking very worried.

"Great," Taylor muttered. "I thought I smelt something fishy." The vampire scoffed, folding her arms across her chest and turning to look out the window.

"Is something wrong with Lindsay?" Courtney asked, furrowing her eyebrows to see if she could remember her doing anything bad. "I thought she was one of the good guys."

"'Good guys'?" Taylor questioned, narrowing her eyes at Courtney. "This isn't a game of Cops and Robber's, Courtney. This is real life. There is no good or bad guys. There's just people." Taylor snapped her head back to the window so the other two girls couldn't see her face.

"There's nothing wrong with Lindsay," Bridgette assured Courtney who was panicking that she had been fraternizing with the enemy or something. "Vampire's and mermaid's don't always get along, that's all."

"Wait, how did you guys get in my house?"

"Your dad let us in, said you'd be home soon," Bridgette shrugged as if it was nothing.

"My-My dad's here?" Courtney questioned, looking around quickly to see if she could spot him.

"No." Taylor answered coldly, "He said he had places to be, but he trusted Bridgette enough to let us stay for a few minutes on our own." Nigel had known Bridgette since she was five and anyone with half a brain knew she was the most trustworthy person on the planet. Courtney didn't really find it shocking that he'd let her friends stay.

As if on cue, Nigel Black came back from the store. "Courtney," he called out. "You home?"

"Hey, dad," Courtney smiled as her father came into the living room.

Nigel smiled at the three girls saying, "I'll give you girl's some privacy," before exiting to the kitchen with the shopping bags.

"Are you sure everything's okay?" Taylor inquired once Nigel was out of earshot.

"Yeah, it was just Heather being...well, Heather," Courtney joked. "She's just been onto me a lot today about you guys, but don't worry, I wouldn't ever tell her a thing." Bridgette frowned, not happy that the Tracker would be hounding after her friend when the rest weren't around. If the group were still attending school in Muskoka then Heather would still be viewing from afar.

"We'd better get back," Bridgette said, looking up at the clock on the wall. It was a long trip back to where they were now living. Taylor looked happy enough to leave, but Courtney wasn't sure she was ready for them to say goodbye again.

"You're going?" Courtney asked, sitting up straight in her seat. She hadn't seen her friends in a long time and didn't want them to leave so soon. Who knew when she was going to see them again.

"We have to," Taylor told her. "No one know's we left."

"And there's too many tracker's still around," Bridgette added, getting to her feet.

"I really miss you guys," Courtney admitted. "Please answer your phone, Bridge."

"We all miss you too," Bridgette sniffled, pulling her best friend into another hug. "And it's really hard to get service, but I promise I'll try my best."

"You know, Duncan's about to go insane without you," Taylor explained. "He misses you the most." It was the nicest thing Taylor could have said. Knowing that Duncan was missing her as much as she was missing him made her feel as if she wasn't completely abandoned, reminding her that this wasn't a choice. Her friends really did wish they didn't have to go.

"Tell him I love him."

"We will," Bridgette said, squeezing Courtney again.

"Bye, Courtney," Taylor said, prying the fairy away from the brunette and heading towards the front door. Courtney didn't follow. It was hard enough as it was.

After watching the living room doorway for a long time after her friends left, Courtney decided to head into the kitchen to see her father. He was sat at the island counter and the CIT took a seat on the red velvet stool beside him.

"Your friends gone?" He asked from behind his newspaper.

"Yeah," Courtney whispered, feeling a slow burning in the back of her eyes. Nigel noticed instantly. He wrapped a warm arm around her shoulders hoping it would provide some sort of comfort for her. "Dad, what's wrong with me?" Courtney rested her head on her father's shoulder, blinking back the tears. "Every time I love something it leaves."

"Nothing's wrong with you, Princess," Nigel said, and this time Courtney didn't stop him from calling her that. "Sometimes people just have to do what people have to do." Courtney groaned and hit her head on the counter in front of her.

"My life sucks," she mumbled. Nigel just chuckled.

A/N: Aww, poor Courtney!

I do love throwing my characters to the mill ;) And I always give Courtney the hardest part! My poor baby!

But speaking of my poor baby, HAS EVERYONE SEEN ALL-STARS? I've seen it three times already and I start fangirling every time! I think I'm in love with it! I can't wait to see episode 2! I'm so happy they brought back the Gwen Duncan Courtney thing and I am sooo happy that Heather and Alejandro are back in it too! I can't wait to see what's in store for the five of them! It's like my favourite three couples! I'm so excited!

...Okay, I think I need to slow my heartbeat down after that mini-fangirl attack. But seriously, guys, you need to be watching this show!

ALSO! On a note more directed at this story, I POSTED CHAPTER ONE OF MISSING SCENES! Missing Scenes is another Going's On story with, you guessed it, MISSING SCENES! The first chapter is a missing scene from chapter six, it's when Duncan tells Nigel he wants to head back to Scarlatina. My advice is to only read Missing Scenes if this is not your first time reading The Going's On because it does contain a lot of spoilers in some of the chapters! They're missing scenes for a reason, guys XD But please go read it :D

Thank you to Desire at gunpoint and AHRedDeath for the reviews! I love you two so much!

Thanks for reading, please review (:

Love, ChloeRhiannonX


	8. Abnormal

**Chapter Eight**

**Abnormal **

It was the day after Courtney had the visit from Bridgette and Taylor. She wasn't feeling up for another day of school after yesterday, so Nigel had allowed her the day off because if Courtney didn't feel like going to school, then something was definitely wrong. It wasn't that she wanted to miss another day, but knowing that she would have to face Heather just did not make it worth it.

Courtney was sitting in the spacious living room with her father. She was stretched out on one sofa and he had his feet up on another. The two of them seemed to be in two different worlds. Nigel was staring blankly at the wall, lost in a train of thought. Courtney was lying face down, trying to sleep the day away. However, she couldn't get her friends out of her head. The visit had only made her want to see them more. She hadn't been missing them half as much until she realized that they could come back and visit.

Nigel cleared his throat, making his daughter jump. She looked around as if she hadn't known where the noise had come from. Yawning, she sat down on her heel's and stretched her arms above her head. Courtney hadn't slept very well the night before. She was still missing Duncan's arms around her. Ever since she had invited him into her bed after he had revealed the secret she had missed his presence.

"Courtney...Princess," Nigel said timidly. "There's something I have to tell you." Nigel moved his eyes to look at his daughter. She looked puzzled. There weren't an awful lot of secrets between the father and daughter, they had always been close since they were really the only family they had.

"What is it?" She asked, furrowing her brows, wondering if there was something they needed to talk about. Courtney didn't think there would be anything, especially not something that just came up out of the blue like this conversation had.

"It's a few things actually," Courtney moved from her seat to the one next to her father, encouraging him to go on. "We have to go away for a while."

"Why?"

"Some bad people are coming," he explained, trying not to give too much away at once. Courtney thought he was treating her as if she was a child, and she did not like it one bit.

"Dad, I'm old enough for you to tell me if the bailiff's are coming." Nigel laughed at Courtney's attempt to lighten the mood.

"No, it's not the bailiff's." Nigel continued, "It's just, some people are after me because I'm-we're-not like everyone else."

'Trackers,' Courtney thought to herself, but she didn't understand why her father would worry about that, or even know about them to begin with.

"Yes, Courtney, it's Tracker's."

Courtney froze in shock for a second before jumping to her feet on the sofa and screaming, "YOU JUST READ MY MIND!" Nigel tried to calm his daughter down, getting to his own feet on the floor. Courtney had her hands to her mouth, dark eyes wide in shock. She wasn't so much afraid as she was curious.

"I-I can explain," Nigel stuttered, but Courtney raised her hand to stop him from talking.

"No need to. So, what are you? Vampire? Werewolf?" She paused for a moment. "Fairy?"

"You're exactly like your mother, always knowing how to lighten the mood." Nigel said laughing.

"Answer my question!" Courtney snapped.

"I'm a sorcerer." Courtney looked her father up and down before asking, "A sorcerer? As in magic and stuff?" Nigel nodded his head, letting his daughter know it was okay to ask about it. He hated having to keep things like this a secret from his only daughter, but everything he did was for her own protection. The whole reason they were in Muskoka in the first place was so no harm would come to Courtney.

Nigel managed to get Courtney to sit back down so they could talk out how much Courtney actually knew.

"I know your friends told you a little bit about our world, but I want to know how much they told you." Courtney shrugged her shoulders. She didn't really know a lot considering how much more she had to learn.

"I know that vampire's aren't supposed to eat humans, only animals. I know that werewolves age at, like, half the rate of humans. I actually know a few vampire's, a few werewolves, a fairy, a fairy-vampire half-breed-"

"Leah," Nigel laughed again at the thought of the girl.

"You know Leah?"

"She's your cousin."

"MY COUSIN!" Courtney screeched.

Nigel nodded his head again. "She's my brother's daughter. He used to be a sorcerer, but he got bit. Then he married a fairy and had Leah. Leah knows she's your cousin, but she knew better than to tell you. As did all your friends. Don't be angry with any of them, they all knew I'd have them killed if they told you anything without my permission first."

"Wow, dad, ruthless," Courtney mocked. "W-Why didn't you want me to know?"

Nigel sighed. This was the hard part. "When you were a baby-barely a month old-Tracker's had your mother killed. She had once been a Tracker, but she left because she realized that life wasn't for her." Courtney nodded, biting back her tongue. So it was true; her mother had been a Tracker. And her father knew about it. "When she came back, we got married and had you. Not necessarily in that order, but we'll talk technicalities another time. The thing is, after you were born, a Tracker managed to get into the kitchen and poison your mothers breakfast. She was almost instantly killed, along with her sister, Maria, who had made the mistake of stealing some of her sister's food." Courtney stared wide-eyed at her father as the story unfolded. "I immediately made the decision to leave Scarlatina and came to Canada, where my parents had used to bring me and my brother on vacation when we were younger. Over the years a few other people from Scarlatina had found their way here and well, you made friends with them, I guess."

Courtney nodded her head along to the story, but after everything she had learnt over the past month, it was a lot to process at once time. But one thought stuck out above the rest.

"You said we have to go away for a while...Are we-Are we going to the same place my friends are?"

"You mean Scarlatina? Yeah, that's where we're heading." A wide grin broke out on Courtney's face. All of the lies in her life pushed aside, she was going too see her friends. She was going to live where her friends were living. She was going to kick their asses for leaving her behind when they knew she wasn't really human.

"We leave as soon as possible," Nigel said, getting up from his seat to signal they needed to start packing. The two of them walked from the room together.

"So, if you're a sorcerer, what does that make me?"

"It makes you half-sorcerer."

"What about my other half?" Nigel looked away from his daughter, chewing on his bottom lip. "I'm half Tracker, aren't I?" Courtney didn't sound very disappointed about it, so Nigel took it as his opportunity.

"Your mother was mostly human, believe it or not," he explained. "She just had traces of Track blood from her father's side of the family. He had a lot of Tracker blood in him. But their family was mostly human, with hints of fairy and vampire in there."

"I'd better go pack," Courtney said noticing her fathers uncomfortably when talking about Courtney's mother. She ran up the stairs to avoid the conversation going any further. When she was halfway, her father called up to her, "You never told me what your boyfriend was." The brunette froze on spot.

"Boyfriend?" She managed to squeak.

"You know, tall, muscle-y, green-hair. Can't really miss him. Stands out as a vampire even in a crowd of them," Nigel teased. He wasn't angry with his daughter for not telling him.

"H-How do you know Duncan?"

"We used to work together."

"Work together?"

"Yeah," Nigel replied with a memorable sigh, thinking back to his time with the vampire. "He had worked in the Palace for five years when I started working there."

"Palace?" Nigel laughed at his daughter's shock.

"I guess he hadn't got that far into his explanation." Courtney stared wide-eyed at her father. "Duncan's a bodyguard for the Scarlatinan Palace. Only part-time, just watching the Princess when she attends Royal Balls and such. Spent most of his time on Earth. As for me, I used to work as the busboy in the Palace kitchen and then later got promoted to assistant Chef. Duncan and I got to know each other over that time." Courtney felt an embarrassing blush creep onto her face. "You know, if you have a boyfriend you don't have to hide it from me. I don't want secret's between us, Court."

"Okay, no more secret's."

* * *

The old moving van was driving down the road almost double the speed limit. It was four in the morning which did mean there was no around, so Nigel Black got away with it. Courtney sat beside her father in the cab of the van. The two of them had been laughing and joking for the past two hours. This might have been because Courtney was looking forward to seeing her friends again and Nigel was excited to get back to his hometown, or because they were both running on no sleep whatsoever. The father and daughter looked like they were getting along famously in the front of the van. It was one of those rare moments that Courtney Black did not have a care in the world.

"Just click your finger's," Nigel laughed at his daughter's attempt at sorcery. He knew it wasn't the easiest thing in the world, and Courtney was a lot older than most sorcerer's when they first learnt basic magic, but her attempts were quite hilarious. She kept clicking her fingers but nothing was happening. "Keep trying," her father encouraged, taking a glance at her annoyed facial expression. The brunette thought for a moment before doing something felt more natural to her. She flicked her wrist in a perfect circle and balanced out her palm, letting a shiny, green apple appear in it.

"TA DA!" She announced, pointing down to the fruit with her spare hand. She took a proud bite before spitting it out the window, tossing the fruit with it. "It's rotten." She screwed her face up in disgust, only making Nigel laugh more.

"You'll get it eventually." Courtney didn't pay much attention to the last part, she was too fascinated with the towns they were passing on their way to Scarlatina. Nigel had explained that Scarlatina was part of a different universe to the one Earth was in. Growlen was a smaller universe in comparison, but it had many worlds, towns and kingdoms all separated out within it.

Courtney managed to drift off to sleep with thoughts of magical lands in her head, and when Nigel shook her awake she found herself facing something she could never had imagined.

All the houses lined the perfectly straight streets. Each one with a bright blue roof, to match the light brown painted walls. In the center of the town was a large fountain. It was made of marble and water was spurting from every angle. People were hanging around, walking up and down the streets. Everyone looked to be happy as far as Courtney could tell. The only thing that was separating Courtney from running over to join in the glory was the large, black iron railings that ran around the whole perimeter of the town, though that was much further than Courtney's eyes could reach. In the middle of the railings, on the side Courtney and Nigel were on, were two gates. They blended in with the rest of the railings and were hard to make out at first, but in front of the gates was a metal desk and an old man sleeping behind it. It was just like Courtney had imagined the gates of Heaven to be like, with St. Peter snoozing as he waited for the new arrivals.

Courtney and Nigel walked up to the desk, waking the old man from him afternoon nap.

"Hello, welcome to Scarlatina, can I take your names, please?" He asked, his voice was a friendly tone as if he didn't mind being woken up one bit. That was where he differed to Courtney. If she had been woken to anything other than Scarlatina, she probably would have been a lot grouchier.

"Nigel and Courtney Black," Nigel answered with a small smile. He was watching his daughter and could feel her excitement radiating off her.

"Of course it is," the man replied in his cheerful voice. He scanned a piece of paper that was lying in front of him on the desk and he and Nigel talked for a short while, exchanging documents and information. Courtney didn't pay any attention, she was watching what was happening on the inside.

The old man handed Nigel a set of key's before clicking his fingers. Courtney woke from her daydream when she saw the moving van disappear. "You remember where you live?"

"I do," Nigel smiled. Though he hadn't stayed in his brother's old house before, Martin Black had been kind enough to give it to him and Courtney as a 'welcome home' present. Martin, his wife and Leah didn't live in Scarlatina, they lived in Nigel's hometown of Nishnaville which was only a stone's throw away from Scarlatina. Nigel had left when he was sixteen, moving into the Scarlatinan Palace until the day he left for Earth.

"I just need you to fill out some paper work for me," the old man pressed a button from behind the desk and the two gates swung open without a noise. "Go on in, miss, your father will be with you soon." Courtney gave the man a warm smile, thanking him. Nigel encouraged his daughter to scope the place out, promising to catch up with her when he could.

Courtney walked into Scarlatina for the first time, staring up at each house she passed. She was in awe of the beauty the large town held. Courtney wanted to take it all in, make sure it was all real. She had no idea where she was going, but she didn't care. She carried along walking, staring at everything and everyone she passed. She must have looked like a lost tourist, but no one stopped her to see if she wanted directions. Not that Courtney minded.

Sitting by the fountain was a group of teenagers. It was their usual hang out. Courtney hadn't noticed them, but they noticed her.

"Hey, do you guys think the new girl looks like Courtney?" Bridgette asked, her fairy wings fluttering in curiosity.

"I think she looks a lot like Courtney," Gwen replied, craning her neck to get a better look at her.

"It can't be Courtney, can it?" Trent questioned no one in particular. Nigel had said he wasn't planning on moving back to Scarlatina, it was too easy for Courtney to find out the truth there. But this girl looked too much like Courtney for it to be a coincidence.

The group of teen's moved around to get a better view of the new girl. None of them knew if it was their friend or not. The possibility seemed pretty slim to them as Nigel was a man of his word.

"Only one way to find out," Duncan smirked, he wolf whistled as loud as he could. "Hey, good looking, fancy coming over here?" He called to her as she neared the fountain. Courtney hid the smirk on her face when she heard her boyfriend's voice. She picked up the pace and Bridgette met her half way in an awkward embrace. Courtney was still having trouble hugging people with wings.

"What are you doing here?" Geoff asked as Courtney hugged him next.

"Oh yeah, like none of you know." She punched Trent in the arm as she hugged him just because he was the closest. Everyone was laughing by now, happy that Nigel Black had changed his mind. "How dare you guys keep it all a secret from me!" Courtney wasn't as angry as she made out, and when Duncan tugged her into his arms all the frustration left her face. She really had missed her friends.

"We didn't really want your dad hiring a hit man on us," Gwen joked, shrugging her shoulders. Courtney laughed. "How much did he tell you, anyway?"

"I'm a sorcerer and you guys knew," she replied, thinking back to the conversation they'd had in Courtney's childhood house. She realized that she was probably never going to get to go back there again, which had made her sad. She had grown up in that house. But moving to Scarlatina was another chapter in her life.

The group of six all exchanged looks and Courtney knew her father hadn't told her everything he could have. But she wasn't asking. There was too much going on inside her head for her to deal with anymore new information. She would ask for it when she was ready, or when her father was ready to share.

* * *

Courtney quickly learnt that Scarlatina was a lot more peaceful that Muskoka. After Duncan had walked her home shortly after she had met up with her friends, Courtney had spent most of the day helping her father unpack all of the boxes that the gate man had magically made appear in their house. Life with magic was going to be hard for Courtney, though her father insisted he never really used it; hence why they were manually unpacking boxes.

Duncan came back near evening time and invited Courtney for a walk around town. He'd taken her to his favorite place; the lake. Between the front and back part of the town, separated by the Palace, was a forest, deep in the forest was a lake that very few people knew about.

The couple was lazing around, watching the water. Courtney was snuggled up in Duncan's arms as he leaned back against a large oak tree. She stared up at him, worried.

"You haven't said much today," Courtney told him, wondering if something was wrong.

"Haven't got much to say," he shrugged in reply. Courtney wondered if it had something to do with the remaining secret, the one she wasn't pushing anyone to open up about.

"Aren't you happy I'm here?" She asked.

"Of course I am," Duncan replied, tightening his grip on his girlfriends waist. Now that he had her he was never letting her go again. Now that Courtney knew about Scarlatina there was no force in the world that could tear them apart. Except maybe Kaly...But that was a story for the future, not for the now.

"Than what is it?" Courtney sat up, her head moving to Duncan's shoulder as opposed to his chest. Her eyes were wider in the setting sun, the lack of light letting the darkness of her iris' take over the whiteness of the rest of her eyes.

"It's nothing," Duncan smiled faintly. "I'm happy you're here and that's it." The brunette sat up fully and forced her lips on Duncan's. He didn't resist and kissed back with as much force. They really had missed each other.

"Then act it," she ordered, breaking away for a moment only to kiss him again as the top of the sun hit the tree's in the distance, shadowing them in darkness.

A/N: This is one of my all time favourite chapters!

I needed some Duncney due to All Stars lacking it...

Well, Courtney knows the secret now XD Or does she? Much more to learn, me thinks ;)

Major thank you to AHRedDeath and TheGirlWithTheGoldenShadow- and props to you dude, you're definitely on the right track with your thinking there ;)

Thanks for reading, please review (:

Love, ChloeRhiannonX


	9. Family

**Chapter Nine**

**Family**

Courtney and Duncan were sitting in their favorite spot; the lake. No one had come by to bother them about it in the almost two weeks Courtney had lived in Scarlatina. She found that most people left her alone when she was around, not that she was complaining. They weren't mean when she started conversations with them, and she had her own friends to deal with.

Everything felt as if it was falling into place for Courtney. When her father wasn't at work he did show her a few tips on how to use her magical abilities and Courtney had found a few of his spell books. She was getting better everyday.

Duncan sighed peacefully, his eyes watching the watcher's edge. He was happy enough to share this experience with Courtney, but he knew that she knew that something was bothering him. He'd assured her many times that it wasn't her being in Scarlatina, he just had past demons to deal with.

The brunette was lying with her head on her boyfriend's lap. He was calmly stroking her hair, leaning his back against the large oak tree they had claimed as their own.

"I'm kinda getting used to this now," Courtney told him, rotating her body so she could smile up at Duncan.

"It didn't take long," Duncan smirked, only to receive a laugh from his girlfriend. "What's so funny?" He asked quirking an eyebrow, though he was fighting the urge to laugh himself.

"I don't know," she giggled. "I just had the sudden urge to laugh."

Duncan stared down at Courtney for a moment, a smile breaking out on his face before he came to his conclusion. He got up from his spot, though Courtney didn't mind because she was still laughing. The climbed the tree he had been leaning against. Courtney heard her boyfriend whistle loudly before a flash of green and orange-like a giant box of tic-tac's-fell from above. The CIT jumped backwards on the floor, scared of the thing that had fallen. The vampire jumped back and screamed, "IZZY!" The redhead laughed at him. "Get outta here!"

"Hey, Dunky baby, how is ya doin'?" Izzy asked, turning to a shocked Courtney. "Hey, Courtney!" Courtney stared at the small teenage girl who had landed at her feet. Her face was familiar, but she looked older than Courtney remembered

"Izzy is a nymph," Duncan told Courtney. "Nymphs are a real big pain!" He growled in Izzy's direction. She didn't seem to notice, simply jumping to her feet and ruffling his Mohawk, much to Duncan's annoyance.

"Aww! I love you too." Izzy happily skipped away, ignoring the vampire's face turning red with anger. The brunette quickly moved to his side, hugging him close to her. She remembered Izzy now. She had been a girl in Courtney's school as a child, but she was sure she'd moved away before middle school. Izzy had been known for being a little...crazy, though she was completely harmless.

"Nymph's are known for causing trouble," Duncan continued to explain. "Izzy probably thought our conversation was too serious and dropped a laughter bomb or whatever it is they use." Courtney broke into a smile. "Now, the real reason I asked you to come to the lake today was because I something to tell you." The young girl pulled away from her boyfriends side, looking up at his face. Duncan didn't look angry or sad or even happy. His face was very indifferent, so much so that Courtney couldn't work out if this was good or bad news. "You see...Well, ever since my sister found out you moved here, she's been badgering on about meeting you and...Well, my parents got into it as well. And now...Well, my parents want to meet you."

Courtney stared in shock. "Oh." Duncan had never mentioned his parents or his sister since Courtney had arrived in Scarlatina, so she found it strange he was bringing it up now.

"I mean, you don't have to meet them or anything, but both my parents had a day off work today and they wanted to know if you'd come over for dinner or something."

"T-Tonight?"

"Yeah. Around...now," Duncan shrugged. "I told Nigel this morning, so he knows if you say yes then you won't be home until later."

"You told my dad?" Courtney asked, her eyes widening. Duncan shrugged again as if it was no big deal for him. Courtney was still having trouble seeing her father and boyfriend and close, personal friends, even though that was the reality of the situation.

It took a little while, but Courtney finally managed to agree to Duncan's plans. He wasn't confident about bringing a girl home to meet his family because he knew what his family could be like, but he was also excited to take her home to meet his family. He'd never done it before.

It turned out that Duncan didn't live that far away from Courtney as she thought he did. He lived in one of the newer houses on the opposite side of the fountain. Courtney had quickly learnt that the fountain was the center point between the Palace and the gates, though the Palace was the center point of the whole of town.

The house was average-sized. It matched the rest of the houses in Scarlatina: brown walls and a blue roof, no out-door decoration.

'Odd color combination,' Courtney noted. She was more nervous now than when her father had brought up Duncan for the first time. This was a whole other adventure in her life. Since Duncan was her first boyfriend she had never been home to 'meet the parents' before.

"What if they don't like me?" She asked.

"What if they do?" Duncan sarcastically replied while faking a gasp. This only received him a punch to the arm from Courtney.

"It's not funny, Duncan," she cried, starting to feel the butterflies in her stomach come to life. "I'm really nervous." Not only was she meeting her boyfriends parents, but she was also going to be alone in a house full of vampires. She knew they all fed on animals, but it still didn't stand well with her.

"Don't be." Duncan leaned in to kiss his girlfriend, only to be interrupted by a young girl in the doorway when he was just an inch from her face.

"Are you two going to stand out here making kiss-y faces all day, or are you gonna come in?" She asked. The girl had long brown hair that reached all the way down her back with a pink hairband holding back her bangs. Her baby blue eye's looked like an off shade of Duncan's. She was wearing a similar outfit to what Courtney remembered Ellie wearing; baby pink tank top and denim shorts, though Courtney doubted she could run very fast like Ellie could in pink converse.

Duncan clenched his hands into fists and moved away from Courtney. "Courtney, this is my sister, Phoebe." Courtney guessed she was around fourteen or fifteen years of age, though being a vampire meant she was always going to be around fourteen or fifteen years of age.

"Excuse me!" Phoebe exclaimed, "I can introduce myself." The girl turned away from her brother and towards Courtney. "Hi, I'm Duncan's sister, Phoebe." Duncan felt like face palming himself for his sisters dumbness, but somehow restrained the urge.

"I'm Courtney." Phoebe nodded her head in approval.

"Can we have a moment alone, Phoebe?" Duncan asked, slightly annoyed that his sister had to interrupt them. She had probably been watching out the window all day, waiting for Duncan to bring his girlfriend home. He was the only one in the family who had never brought someone home, so they were all excited.

"No!" Phoebe grabbed Courtney's hand and dragged her into the house.

"Phoebe, leave the poor girl alone," an older girl told the younger one. She was standing in the kitchen where Courtney had been forcefully taken. This looked more like Duncan than Phoebe. She had black hair that was tied back in a droopy bun, though it looked like she was hoarding a Rapunzel like length. She had the same ice blue eyes as Duncan did and Courtney found them breath taking. The girl was wearing a long-sleeved cream top with a black mini-skirt and flip-flops. Courtney instantly assumed it was Duncan and Phoebe's mother.

"I wasn't about to let her freeze to death outside," Phoebe replied.

"Phoebe," the older girl sighed. "How would you possibly know it was cold outside?" Courtney remembered that vampire's didn't feel temperature.

"I can just tell, okay?" Phoebe replied as if it was obvious. The two girl's continued their argument even further and Courtney felt slightly caught in the middle. She felt Duncan behind her, resting his hands on her waist.

"If we leave now they won't notice," he whispered in her ear. Courtney fought the urge to smile as he slipped on of his hands into hers and tried to pull her away without the other two noticing.

"We'll notice," the darker haired girl told him. "Hi," she finally greeted Courtney with a handshake. "I'm Duncan's sister, Rebecca, or Becca or Becky or whatever else you can come up with. I prefer Rebecca." So maybe she wasn't their mother. Duncan had said he had two sisters when they were living back on Earth, so she assumed he hadn't been lying about that after all.

"Hi, I'm Courtney, or Court or Princess. I prefer Courtney." The brunette replied, making Rebecca laugh, "I like you, your funny." She exclaimed, giving Courtney a warming smile.

"Where's mom and dad at?" Duncan asked.

"Mom's out shopping for supplies, and dad's doing what he does best-" Phoebe cut across her sister, "Screaming at Derick to grow up and get a job?"

"Okay, second best thing-"

"Being grumpy?"

"Really?" Rebecca asked, not sure if her younger sister was joking or not. "What goes through your head most of the time?" Silence. "He's in the garage working on the car." Phoebe rolled her eyes as if that was going to be her next guess, but no one got to say any more because at that moment an older teenage boy stormed into the room. Courtney noticed he had a similar facial structure to Duncan, but that was where the similarities ended. His hair was a deep mahogany and he was in a black t-shirt, black jeans, and was wearing odd shoes: one red, one blue. The boy's eye's were lit up red, white fangs dangling from his mouth and a scowl plastered across his face. Courtney grabbed onto Duncan's hand harder than before. After the incident with Taylor all those weeks ago she was still in a little fear of vampire's who looked like they would eat her.

"Why is my life so fucking worthless?" He muttered to himself, not acknowledging the other four. "Why can't I do anything right?" He slammed his hand down next to the sink before grabbing a plastic bottle from the refrigerator that was filled with a thick red liquid.

"She broke up with you, didn't she?" Rebecca asked forcing the boy to notice he wasn't alone in the room.

"YES!" He screamed. "SHE FUCKING DUMPED MY SORRY ASS BECAUSE SHE DOESN'T FUCKING THINK I'M 'THE ONE' ANYMORE!"

"DERICK!" Came a loud bellow from somewhere else in the house.

"SORRY!" Derick yelled back. "Fucking asshole," he mumbled to himself. Derick shook his head and his eyes' turned back to their normal color, which Courtney saw was a deep brown, unlike his siblings. His fangs retracted into his gums and turned to face the only person in the room her didn't know. "You must be Courtney," he said, extending his hand. "I'm Derick."

Through the evening Courtney learnt a lot about Duncan, his family and vampire's in general. She first learnt that when he invited her over for dinner that he actually meant sitting down at a kitchen table to eat spaghetti with his whole family. But while she had pasta sauce, they had something more their taste. It turned out that there are certain foods that vampire's could still eat, which Courtney was grateful for since she didn't want to be the only one at the table eating.

The next thing Courtney learnt was that Duncan was adopted. He had failed to mention that part before. All of the four of them were adopted, though Rebecca and Duncan were actually distantly related, which why they had the same eyes. Rebecca was the oldest at nineteen, Derick was eighteen, Duncan sixteen and Phoebe was the baby of the family at fourteen. They'd all been adopted over the past two hundred years, but the family had only moved to Scarlatina thirty years ago, with Duncan moving to Earth almost seventeen years ago.

She hadn't been expecting it, but Courtney really enjoyed spending time with Duncan's family. They made her feel comfortable.

The couple were walking down one of the many cobbled streets. The night had fallen and Duncan was walking his girlfriend home in the dark.

"Was it really that bad?" Duncan asked, slightly embarrassed by his dysfunctional family. He hadn't been expecting them all to give Courtney so much attention.

"Yes, it was horrible," she joked, a playful smile on her face. "I had a good time tonight, thank you." Courtney gave Duncan a quick peck on the cheek, though he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her to him, kissing her deeply.

Courtney pushed him away, taking Duncan's hand in hers and started walking back towards her house. Her father would be expecting her home soon and canoodling in the street with her boyfriend didn't sound like too much fun to her anyway. She'd have to wait until her father went back to work for Duncan to come over again. Over the past two weeks she found that her father actually worked in Scarlatina and it was here that he went on business trips to, but he hadn't been to work since they moved in. Courtney was starting to worry about him.

"What's going on up there?" Duncan asked.

Courtney shrugged. "Just thinking that I need to get you all to myself sometime. Alone...In my bedroom." Duncan stopped walking, turning to face Courtney. She had never said that to him before, but Courtney was learning to overcome her fears. "This is me," she said, stopping in front of a house. It was different from the other'; cream walls and a pink roof. Courtney's design, of course. Her magic class with her father that morning hadn't gone as planned, and obviously he hadn't noticed yet.

"I see your powers are coming along well," Duncan joked, earning a shove from his girlfriend. He pulled her in closely. "I'd kiss you, but your dad's watching from the upstairs window," he whispered in her ear. Courtney didn't care, she broke away from Duncan's embrace, grabbed his chin in her hand and forced her lips onto his.

* * *

A/N: Aw, how cute ^_^

How have things been this week with y'all? I've had a horrible week, to say the least.

BUT GLEE STARTED BACK TODAY AND I FREAKED OUT WHILE WATCHING IT THIS MORNING! KLAINE! KLAINE! KLAINE! KLAINE! KLAINE!

Thank you to AhRedDeath and mscullen98 for being totally awesome!

Thanks for reading, please review (:

Love, ChloeRhiannonX


	10. School Talk

**Chapter Ten**

**School Talk**

The bellowing scream rang throughout the whole town of Scarlatina. Courtney and her father were in the depth of a conversation when the subject had turned to school.

"WHAT?" Courtney was in shock at what her father had suggested.

"Courtney, you're still only sixteen," Nigel reminded his daughter. "You have to go to school."

"School, yes. School here, no," Courtney protested. Nigel didn't think his only daughter would put up this much of fight about school after she had spent the last ten years raving about every sick day she had to take off school. But, to Courtney, after everything she had gone through, school was not in her top priorities. There were still days when she didn't want to get out of bed because her life has gotten too weird.

"It's the only high school around here."

"What about my old school? Sure, I had no friends, but I was an A Plus student!" Nigel sighed, he knew he wasn't going to win this battle. Courtney always won their battles. He knew he was very soft with her while growing up, but he couldn't help it. He always let her get her own way.

"Your old school thinks you're on a business trip with me," Nigel explained. The subject of school hadn't been brought up at all until now. "You can return there once all the Tracker's have left town. They'll soon realize that there's nothing in Muskoka for them and we can go home in a few months."

Courtney sat down on the sofa, a scowl printed onto her face. Her brows were furrowed and she wouldn't make eye contact with her father. She didn't realize how much she missed her home until she thought about the fact that she may never see it again. She knew her father had said it would be a few months, but he was so much happier in Scarlatina that Courtney didn't think she would want to take him away from this life.

"I don't want to go to this school," Courtney calmly replied. She didn't want to get mad at her father.

"School is school, and you're going."

"I don't want to!" So much for calm. Nigel was still pushing her buttons when he had usually given up by now.

"It's not a case of what you want-"

"I'm not going!"

"Stop acting like a spoilt brat and do as you're told!" Nigel yelled, his voice hitting the ceiling and echoing through most of the house. "You're going and that's final." The father and daughter stayed still, staring each other down. That was the first time Nigel had ever raised his voice at his daughter. He had never shouted at her before, she had never done anything to be shouted at. The second Nigel had done it he started to regret it. Courtney didn't reply, she looked away, eyes burning.

"I'm going out," she whispered, getting to her feet and leaving the room, not giving her father time to apologize to her.

Courtney Black loved school. She always had. Always top of the class, always teacher pet. It was as if school was purposely built for her. School was where she belonged. The only reason Courtney didn't want to go to school in Scarlatina was because she was scared. None of her friends would be there, for a start, since the only one who was of school age was Bridgette and she was home schooled. But it was also the fact that this high school was for people like her-vampire's, werewolves, fairy's, sorcerer's, and whatever else she had only been dreaming about a few weeks ago. Everyone there knew what they were doing while Courtney was still making rotten apples and changing house colors. If Courtney went to school she felt as though she would stick out like a sore thumb.

"Going somewhere, Princess?" A flash of green and Duncan appeared at the fuming girls side. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, but she shrugged him away. It wasn't that Courtney was mad at Duncan too, she just didn't want to be around anyone.

"As far away from here as possible," she replied as she continued to walk away. Duncan kept up with her pace quite easily. He walked along side Courtney as she continued to walk in a direction she had never ventured before. He didn't bother Courtney with any more questions for a long while, before he thought he would help.

"Can I show you something?"

"Duncan-" Courtney tried to stop him, but he was adamant this would make her feel better. Not feeling as if she had much of a choice, Courtney agreed, and Duncan started leading them in the same direction they were heading, anyway. It was another one of Duncan's favorite places, but it was situated on the opposite side of Scarlatina to the lake.

The couple passed the row of houses where Duncan lived and continued up a side street that ran right beside the tall, iron fence. They passed many more houses on their travels, each looking as new as the last. Duncan explained that this part of town had only been built around twenty years ago, while the back part of town had been around for hundreds of years. It was only recently that the population started to grow, so they had to expand the small town into a bigger one.

Duncan pointed up to a tall tower in the corner where the iron fence changed direction. It was still fairly far away, but Courtney could make out that it was a cellphone tower of some sorts.

"It's a beeper tower," Duncan told his confused girlfriend, though the sentence only confused her more. "Beepers are how people communicate here. Cell phones are sort of banned, though people do still have them." Courtney nodded her head and Duncan took a small device from his pocket. "It's kind of a cross between a pager and a cellphone, I guess." Courtney took it off him. It was small enough to fit in her palm. It was blue plastic, with a small white screen and full qwerty keyboard, though the buttons looked too small for anyone's fingers to use. She handed it back to her boyfriend, making a note to ask her father about getting one as she had learnt that cell phone signal was few and far between in Scarlatina.

When the two arrived at the base of the Beeper tower, Courtney looked at Duncan expectantly. He had a sly grin on his face as he exclaimed, "We're going to climb it."

"W-What?" Courtney stuttered over her unsure words. "We could get into trouble or something!"

Duncan chuckled. "Quit worrying and follow me." Duncan took a small running start and jumped up the first few foot holes. The clang where his shoe hit the metal sent a pet peeve shiver through Courtney's body. She watched as Duncan climbed higher and higher. When he was about halfway up he turned to look back down at her. He had been climbing slowly so she could keep up. He looked expectantly at his girlfriend, who, after a sigh, started climbing herself. She still wasn't as fast as Duncan, who made it to the platform that was situated halfway up the tower in ten minutes flat, but twenty minutes later Courtney found herself lying on the cold metal floor.

Duncan held his hand out and pulled Courtney to her feet. When he'd first moved to Scarlatina he used to climb to tower because it had the best view. Of course, back then he was hunting prey, not staring at the pretty houses. But over the years he had lived in Scarlatina and all the years he came back for work, Duncan had found the tower to be a sanctuary for him. While the lake was a public place, no one ever really had the sense to climb the tower and find out that it was like a tree house.

"It's...It's so beautiful up here." Courtney's eyes couldn't take in every inch of Scarlatina at once. It was an ongoing beauty that didn't have an end, it reached into the beautiful abyss and just kept going. Duncan pointed out her house to her- though with the roof still pink it wasn't hard to see. He pointed out his house too, where, with his vampire vision, Duncan could see Phoebe and Derick fighting on the porch. Courtney pointed out a large brick building in the background and Duncan explained that was the Palace. Courtney hadn't been anywhere near the Palace, and she had no reason to. It was very large, standing at six stories tall with slanting roofs and stone archways. Duncan pointed out the courtyard and the servant entrance that he used to get in and out of work.

"What do you work as, again?" Courtney asked, leaning her arms on the railing that stretched around the platform as she turned to face Duncan.

"I'm a bodyguard for the Princess," he calmly replied with a smile at Courtney. She felt there was something more there. "It was originally going to be twenty-four seven, but when I said I was moving to Earth, they changed it to only for Royal events only. I'm so good at my job that they didn't want to let me go completely." Courtney nodded. She understood why Duncan would be good at his job; she'd seen him fighting at school. He wasn't weak and could take pretty much anyone.

"What's the Princess like?"

Duncan laughed. "A pain in the ass." He turned to look at the Palace again. "But I enjoy her company. The Palace is like a home away from home to me now. I've worked there for twenty-seven years- Damn." Courtney could see in his eyes that Duncan loved him job, but there was something hiding behind it, a sadness that didn't belong there. She placed a kind hand on his arm.

"How old is she, then?" Courtney asked. "If you've been working there for twenty-seven years, shouldn't she have been crowned Queen by now?" Duncan laughed again, the sadness almost forgotten.

"The current Princess is only slightly younger than you," Duncan explained. "I worked as a bodyguard for her mother before her. Ten years for Maria, seventeen and on-going for Arianna." The sadness was there again.

"Why did you stop working for her mother?"

"She died. Tracker attack." Courtney gasped, raising a hand to her mouth. She knew Tracker's were ruthless, but a killing spree on the Queen? That sounded outrageous to her. Though she couldn't help but let her mind wander... "But enough about me. I brought you up here so we could talk about you. Why so angry?"

Courtney shut up instantly, turning away from her boyfriend. She knew Duncan could easily read her thoughts if he wanted to, but he didn't. He waited for Courtney to tell him what was going on up there instead.

There was silence for a long time. Courtney was still thinking about the Tracker's. Duncan was worried she was still thinking about the Palace.

"My dad's trying to force me to go to school here," Courtney eventually told him. The sadness was now in her eyes. "And...It's not like I don't want to go to school, because I do, but it's almost summer and we'll be leaving in a few months anyway, or my dad says...What's the point of me starting a new school?"

"Because you're sixteen and need an education?" Courtney didn't find Duncan very funny.

Out of nowhere, Courtney exploded into a rampant rage, "I want to go back to before I met you guys! Before I knew the stupid secret. I just want everything back to normal again." Tears started welling in the brunette's eyes.

"You don't mean that," Duncan kissed Courtney's temple, not angry with her."Why do you feel like this all of a sudden, the secret's never bothered you before?"

"Why do you care?" Courtney replied, rubbing her eyes and making them puffy. She was being snappy with Duncan when she knew he didn't deserve it. He hadn't done anything wrong and it wasn't like he could change her fate where school was concerned.

"I love you," Duncan whispered to the wind, his eyes trained on Courtney the whole time. She still wasn't facing him. She couldn't face him. He was probably thinking she was being stupid for causing so much fuss over school. But he wasn't thinking that at all. "I don't like seeing you upset, Princess." Courtney gave a small smile. He hadn't called her that in a long time now.

Courtney walked around the platform, away from the stunning view of Scarlatina. She walked to the side that showed the outside world. With the way her life had been in fast forward mode, Courtney kept forgetting there was still the rest of the world outside the gates. "Where's the next school too?"

"A few miles away," Duncan pointed far into the distance as he moved to be at Courtney's side again, remembering a place he knew all too well. "But you don't want to go there."

"Why not?"

"It's one of the Tracker Academy's." Courtney looked away from Duncan, down to the floor. "There's three of them in Growlen and many more on Earth. They train Tracker's to hunt us and...well, you know the score by now." Courtney tried to push the thoughts of Tracker's out of her head, but it wouldn't budge. It was imprinted in her mind like a scar across her brain.

"Right now I'd rather go there," she mumbled sadly.

Duncan gave half a scoff, "The worst part is that you'd get in."

The two fell into an uncomfortable silence. Duncan knew what she was considering without even reading her mind. It was a vicious tension that had appeared between them. Courtney knew what she was getting herself into. No matter what she had promises in the past, this was the future for her. She couldn't see anything other than herself attending the Tracker Academy.

"I'm thinking about going there." The words were barely more than a gurgle in the back of her throat, but Duncan heard it too clearly for his liking.

"I can't tell you not to go," Duncan spoke softly, still not angry with Courtney. "But do you really want to spend the rest of your life chasing the ones you love? Do you want to spend the rest of your life hunting me, hunting Nigel, hunting Bridgette and Geoff and Gwen and Trent. Hell, even Taylor and Leah!"

"If it means getting out of this place, then yeah."

Duncan walked Courtney home after that, but the two never said a word to each other. He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and left her to Nigel. Courtney knew she had to tell her father her plans, and when she did, it didn't go down too well.

"No, Courtney, I'm not letting you!" Nigel shouted. He had apologized for shouting as soon as she had come in through the door, but now that Courtney was talking nonsense he had no choice but to raise his voice again.

"I'm not a child!" Courtney screamed back. "I'm old enough to make my own decisions, dad! You have no control over me anymore..."

"I'm your father and I'm saying NO!" Nigel was furious. Joining the Tracker's? It was absurd.

Courtney lowered her voice, shaking her head at her father. "Like I said, no control." She left the living room and went straight up to her bedroom to start packing. She had had enough of all the arguing. Being in Scarlatina had changed the relationship the father and daughter had, or maybe it was Courtney not trusting her father after all the lies he had told her through her life. She was seeing him as a different person now.

Nigel was worried. Courtney's mother had left to become a Tracker when she was sixteen, and the memory was too fresh in Nigel's mind to let his daughter go through the same thing. Her mother had left when she was eighteen to come back to Scarlatina. She had been shunned for a long time after that, and just before she turned twenty-one, three weeks after her daughter had been born, the Tracker's took their revenge; they killed her. Nigel did not want to sit by and let the same happen to the only person he loved in the world.

* * *

"SHE'S DOING WHAT!" Taylor screamed, jumping to feet in anger. She knew Courtney couldn't have been trusted.

"Going to the Tracker Academy," Duncan confirmed. The group were sitting around the fountain like they usually did. As soon as he'd walked Courtney home he'd sent a message to everyone to meet at the fountain. They'd all arrived in record time to hear to heart-breaking news. No one wanted to admit Taylor was right about Courtney all along.

"She can't," Trent said without thinking. He was in disbelief.

"It's Taylor's vision," Duncan replied. "She's going." He still wasn't angry with his girlfriend, if anything he was disappointed. Disappointed that Courtney could be blind sided by an urge. He could sense it in her that she wanted to go to the Tracker Academy because she was more curious than anything. The fact that it was in her blood to be curious about it didn't help much. Duncan had gone through the same thing with her mother.

"Please tell me she'll be rejected," Bridgette tried to sound hopeful. "She's not got enough Tracker blood or something." No one said a thing. No one wanted to admit that Courtney could walk straight through the doors and no one at the Academy would stop her.

Gwen turned to Geoff. "Can't you do something?"

"If Courtney wants to go then she can," Geoff stated. Being the level headed man he was, Geoff was taking Courtney's thoughts and feelings into consideration. This was still her life and her decision. He understood why she would want to be a Tracker, and Geoff didn't want to be the one who stood in her way.

"We're her friends," Bridgette moaned, resting her head on her boyfriends shoulder. "She can't want to kill us." It came out more of a question than a statement. Bridgette was too confused. She felt as if she had done something to push her best friend in the opposite direction. "I need to talk to her." The fairy got to her feet and started walking towards Courtney's house. Taylor followed quickly behind. She had some yelling to do.

Nigel opened the front door to his house and found himself facing two teenage girls. Without a word from any of them he walked over to the staircase and shouted up the stairs to his daughter. A muffled reply came back and Nigel sighed, turning to face Bridgette and Taylor.

"Try to talk some sense into her."

"That's why we're here," Taylor told him nervously.

Courtney was standing at the top of the stairs, looking down at the three having a worried conversation. She wiped her eyes dry from the tears that had been falling for the past half hour and walked down the stairs to greet them, "Hey." Nigel took it as his opportunity to leave the three girls alone.

"Don't 'hey' us!" Taylor snapped, her eyes tinting red. They hadn't turned that color around Courtney since the time the two had hugged, but Taylor was really mad.

"Why are you doing this, Court?" Bridgette asked, tugging on Courtney's arm and pulling her into a hug.

"I want to go." Courtney pulled away from Bridgette, not able to look either of her friends in the eye.

"Why do you want to?" Taylor asked.

"It's my life, so just butt out!" Courtney snapped. Bridgette shook her. She thought she knew Courtney better than anyone else, the two had been best friends for eleven years. She must have been wrong.

"Fine," the blonde whispered, struggling to stop the ears from dripping down her face. "It looks like we're not friends anymore." Courtney looked at her best friend in shock. She hadn't been expecting Bridgette to be so harsh about her decision, but quickly collected herself.

"If that's the way it has to be." Taylor wasn't happy with that response.

"No! You're meant to say 'but I still want to be friends' and then we'll say 'then don't go' and then you'll say 'fine, I'll stay'."

"Well, if you don't want to be my friend then don't. I have lots of packing to do." Bridgette left the house without a goodbye. She was too angry and upset with Courtney to face her for another minute.

Taylor stayed, staring her cousin-in-law down. Courtney didn't have the energy to fight her. "You told me you didn't like hurting Duncan. Well, I've got news for you, Court, you're killing him right about now." Courtney was speechless. She shook her head once and retreated back upstairs. She didn't have anything to say to Taylor and Taylor didn't have anything more to say to her either. She left the house in peace.

"That went well," Nigel muttered, the sobs of his daughter echoing through the house.

Courtney had stopped packing and was lying face down on her bed, letting the tears fall freely. She didn't have an impulse to wipe them away anymore. She couldn't believe that she was now friendless. She hadn't been thinking straight when she told Taylor and Bridgette she didn't want to be friends anymore. Courtney hated to admit it, but Taylor was right, she should have told them she still wanted to be friends with them. She should have told them that she wanted to stay with them because she did. But, somehow, Courtney couldn't find the words. Now she was stuck going to the Tracker Academy and leaving this world behind her.

* * *

A/N: Ooooooh...Courtney, what are you doing?!  
I do see the rational and irrational side to Courtney's reasoning, though so...

Did you like the chapter? Because...Guess what? THERE'S ONLY ONE MORE LEFT! Yup. Only 11 chapters in this story and this is number 10...wow. It's gone by so fast...

Why is this chapter two days late, you may ask? Because on Thursday I had one of my stories removed from the site. Yeah...Fanfiction took down Fitting Room Fun, a oneshot I'd written for The Mortal Instruments, because it may or may not have contained public gay buttsex...

But I'm back now and that's the main thing =P

Thank you to AHRedDeath, kamilamc and RangerManaInSnuggieWar. You guys RAWK!

Thanks for reading, please review (:

Love ChloeRhiannonX


	11. Tracking Academy

**Chapter Eleven**

**Tracking Academy **

Courtney Black was sitting on her front porch, staring out at Scarlatina. The house was back to the usual color of brown walls and a blue roof. The fact that her father had decided to change it back made her realize how real of a situation she had found herself in. This was possibly the last time she would see Scarlatina in her life, but some deep niggling in her brain told her she wouldn't miss it. She'd only been here a month, after all.

All her bags had been packed into the taxi cab the old man at the gate had hired for her. It was the only car in Scarlatina and Courtney could see curious little faces poking out from behind their mothers skirts as them passed, though their mothers hurried them along too quickly. No one would stand to face Courtney. News of what she was doing was moving fast. For the past few days she had no contact with anyone, no one wanted to talk to her. Even her own father kept chit chat to a minimum. It was making Courtney feel worse as a person, but it wasn't changing her mind. All she could think about was getting away to live with normal people again. No more stupid powers or mythical creatures surrounding her all the time. It was the only thing that kept her going.

"Is it safe for me to say goodbye?" Courtney looked up to see her boyfriend standing in the tree in her front garden. He looked as if he had been crying, but he was hardly going to admit it if Courtney asked. Duncan kept his tough exterior no matter what.

"Get down from there," Courtney giggled. Duncan was still the one good thing in her life. "It's not like I have a deadly disease or something." In one swift movement Duncan jumped down from the tree and landed beside Courtney on the porch, crouching down so they were almost eye level.

"You might as well have since no one in town will go near you." The brunette sighed. She knew it was true. She was already being shunned by everyone. Her father had warned her it was going to happen.

"Thanks for pointing out the obvious." She didn't look at him, she couldn't bear it. "I'm gonna miss you." Duncan cupped Courtney chin with his hand and pulled her to face him.

"I'm going to miss you too." Courtney pushed herself forward, catching his lips in hers. This was going to be their last kiss for a long time. Courtney knew that she couldn't come back to Scarlatina and Duncan couldn't come near the Tracker Academy without risking being burnt at the stake. They'd have to wait until she could be sent for her on the job training on Earth in a year or two, then they could see each other again.

Duncan was the reason Courtney hadn't left yet. She had been waiting for him to come say goodbye. Now he had, the only thing left was for her leave. Courtney nodded her head at her boyfriend, allowing him to hug her before she climbed into the passenger seat of the taxi cab. Nigel had refused to come outside and say his goodbye, he had said everything he needed to inside, though he watched with tear stained cheeks from the upstairs window.

"Call when you can," Duncan told her. Courtney bit her lip to stop the tears. Tears were forming in Duncan's eyes too. It had been hard enough to leave Courtney the first time with the promise of seeing her again, but this time was even harder because he didn't know if he would see her again.

The car drove off with Courtney waving to Duncan in the side view mirror. Duncan tried to smile for her benefit, but it was harder than he made it look. Soon enough he was left alone in the street.

"It's okay to cry, Duncan."

"Thanks, Phoebe." Duncan chuckled sadly. He wasn't going to cry. He turned to find his two sisters had shown up behind him. They hadn't been far away, Duncan had sensed them following him to say his goodbyes. They hadn't wanted to talk to Courtney themselves, they were technically shunning her like the rest of town. But they wanted to be there for their brother.

"We all know she's not really one of them," Rebecca smiled, wrapping her arm around her brother. He pulled her in close for a hug. "And besides, now we can go hunting more, right?" Duncan tried harder to smile. His sisters were always trying to get him to hunt with them more, but his job was always getting in the way. As Courtney drove away, so did his main duty. "Speaking of which, you got time to go for a quick hunt now?" Phoebe's eyes lit up with excitement at the thought of going hunting with her siblings. She rarely got to go with them, it was usually by herself.

"Just a quick one. I have a meeting at the Palace later."

Duncan knew he was about to get laid off.

* * *

A small woman was walking Courtney down one of the many corridors in the large Academy. She was quite old, with crow feet tickling the corners of her eyes, but her dark hair didn't look as if it held a grey streak. She was wearing a black and red suit, which Courtney had learnt meant she had power in the school. Courtney was rushing to keep up with her new Headmistress, tugging on all three of her suitcases as no one had shown up to help her with them. She was suddenly more aware of how badly she wanted to use her powers. This wasn't the time or the place.

"Well, Courtney, we are very happy for you to be joining us here at our Tracker Academy," Mrs. Fields said, a kind smile on her face even though she wasn't actually facing Courtney. She appeared to be a very peppy woman.

"I'm happy to be here, Mrs Fields," Courtney replied politely, though her heart wasn't quite in it. Courtney was still in a state of shock that she was actually at the Tracker Academy. The day she told Duncan and her father that she was going to be attending the Academy, she had applied. Two days later she had been invited for a two week trail run as a student starting immediately. If the next two weeks went well for Courtney she would become a permanent student at the Tracker Academy.

"This is your room." Mrs Fields stopped halfway down a corridor that looked exactly like the rest, but this one had more doors lining each side. "Your roommate should already be back from classes, so knock on the door and get yourself sorted. I'll see you tomorrow morning for orientation." Courtney nodded her head, a smile on her face. Mrs. Fields walked off and Courtney knocked the door when she was far enough gone.

It took a minute, but the door swung open to show the last person Courtney wanted to see. "There is no way my luck is this bad," she exclaimed.

"You're my new roommate?" The all too familiar Asian girl asked, not sure if she was shocked or disgusted. The two girls stared each other down before Heather moved aside, letting Courtney into the room.

The two didn't speak and the air was thick between them in the small dorm room. Courtney had a single bed, a desk and a dresser. She managed to fit all of her clothes into three drawers in the dresser and she found her new school uniform in the fourth. The desk was already stocked with textbooks she would need and Courtney put away the rest of her books and bits and pieces she had brought with her. The suitcases packed away neatly under her bed and Courtney found herself lost.

The whole time Courtney was putting together her side of the room, Heather laid on her own bed, smirking at her new roommate.

"So, you finally decided you were on the wrong side," Heather said, breaking the tense silence between the two. Though they had rarely spoken while they had been on Earth together, the few times they had interacted had never gone down well.

"I don't want to talk about it," Courtney replied, picking up a notebook and making a list of things she needed to go into town and buy. Heather sat up on the bed and turned to face the new Tracker-in-training. Being her roommate meant Heather was going to be a big part of her training.

"Well, I think we should have a fresh start," Heather smiled. "What do you say?" She stuck a hand out to the brunette, who eyed it cautiously before signing the deal with the devil. It wasn't that Courtney wanted to be friends with Heather, but she didn't have a lot of choice in the matter anymore.

* * *

The green haired teenager found himself sitting on the tower platform again, this time by himself. His friends had tried to get his attention, but Duncan didn't want it. He wanted to be alone with his thoughts and had been all week. Ever since Courtney left he hadn't been able to dig himself out of the slump.

The meeting at the Palace had gone well. Duncan had been relieved of duties that included Courtney and Kaly had even given him some time off too, so he didn't have to be anywhere near the Palace for another whole week. He was hoping to be promoted to Princess Arianna's twenty-four seven guard just so he would have something to do.

Nigel was preparing to move back to Canada. The Trackers were rumored to be dwindling out, though he wasn't as worried without Courtney with him.

Everyone in town had been buzzing with the news of one of their own leaving for the Tracker's, but the news was already growing old.

The vibrations in Duncan's pocket caused him to smile. There was only one person who would be calling him. He pulled out his cell phone, grateful that he had been sitting at the tower now (it was the only place guaranteed to get service).

"Hey, Princess," he greeted, flipping open the phone with his hand. "How's school?"

There was a pregnant pause before Courtney replied. "School's okay, I guess." She sounded upset, as if she was fighting back more tears than she had already spilled through the week.

"Baby, what's wrong?" Duncan sat up straighter, straining to hear his girlfriend.

Courtney was silent for another moment and Duncan was sure he heard someone whispering in the background. "Duncan, we really need to talk." Duncan knew what was coming. "It was all good for us to think that we could pull off this relationship, but now I'm here I can't seem to focus on anything but you. You're a distraction and...and I can't have distractions right now. What I'm doing is too important to me."

"I understand," he whispered down the line.

"I still love you, Duncan. I just...I can't be with you." Courtney let out a choked sob. "I've got to go, class starts soon."

"Bye, Princess." He heard the beep that meant the call had been disconnected. And, for the first time in seventeen years, Duncan let the tears flow down his face.

* * *

A/N: Well, that hurt.

But I guess that's it...That's the end of Just The Beginning...Sad face.  
NO NEED TO FEAR! Real Life, the epic sequel to Just The Beginning, will be out on...OCTOBER 25TH! YES! I am skipping next week just to give myself some time off...kinda. And to catch up with my writing in general, I've so far got five and a half chapters done for Real Life, and there are nine in total...Yeah, a little less than this one...But it's still gonna be an EPIC story! It'll finish the week before Christmas! And after Real Life comes The Fight Is On, which introduces my favourite character in this series (though they have been mentioned a few times already), so sit tight for that ;)

ALSO! Before I forget, ManaTheWeirdOne asked a great question; Why does Courtney want to go to the Tracker Academy?  
I realise I didn't do well at explaining this to people who may not know as much about the series as others do, so I'll try and piece it together the best I can without spoiling future stories! Basically, there is only two schools Courtney can go to; Scarlatina High school or Tracker's Academy. The nearest school beyond there is too far to get back and fore to everyday (think of it as living in a town with one school and the nearest town is close, but not too close and after that you're kind of just stranded). And even though Courtney's scared of going to High school in Scarlatina, you'd think that would be better than hunting down your friends...But, at the same time, Courtney's curious. Ever since Duncan told her about that the Academy she felt something stir inside her...and that would be her heritage. Her mother was a Tracker. It's in her blood to be drawn towards the school. Even though it's not the smartest of decisions, it's the one that makes most sense in her mind.  
I hope I explained that a bit better for anyone who didn't understand. Anymore questions I will be more than happy to answer via PM ^_^

I wanted to give a massive thank you to everyone who reviewed this story; Lepope1234, Badass Courtney, Tiggystretch, ThatSuperHotSexyBookWorm, kutiekat44, Desire at gunpoint, TheGirlWithTheGoldenShadow, mscullen98, kamilamc, ManaTheWeirdOne. And, most importantly, a major thank you to AHRedDeath who has reviewed every single chapter without fail...dude, you're amazing and I love you!

Thank you all for being here from start to finish and I hope to see you all for The Going's On: Real Life, in two weeks time!

Thanks for reading, please review (:

Love, ChloeRhiannonX


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